On this, Jimmy The Hat, I bow to your logic. It isn't fair to attack Winegardner personally. He did a job that Random House commissioned him to do, and if he made a complete balls-up of it then it's Random House to be blamed for not only publishing it, but not insisting on rewrites.
However debatable his writing ability is, Winegardner had a wealth of knowledge to draw from; the characters of Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola are barely mentioned the same with the brilliant Frank Pentangelo (although Clemenza and Tessio's deaths are documented - thank heavens for small mercies). Instead of ploughing the depths of Godfather lore, we get treated to a dull protagonist (Nick Geraci), a barely-recognizable Michael Corleone, a completely out-of-character Fredo and a long and boring subplot regarding Francesca Corleone and Billy Van Arsdale.
The publishers know their demographics. They're aware that there will always be an interest in the franchise and they know that the characters are well loved and established. Someone at Random House should have noticed that the characters were shallow and the storyline incomprehensible and flatly nonexistent. Someone needed to pull Winegardner to one side and say "Hold on, what the hell are you writing here?" Do they employ proofreaders? Random House assume that just because an author has read 100 books on the Mafia and organised crime for research, he's qualified to write about the Corleone family.
After reading the book I tried to imagine what Mr Puzo would have made of the book. My guess is that he would have advised Winegardner to keep the Geraci character but take the story and the character in a whole new direction. Geraci 's hype on the jacket promised a Sicilian with cunning, but this wasn't delivered. Maybe Mario could have given him pointers.
IMHO, if Winegardner could have or would have sought the input of FFC, he might have written a better book. Maybe he did consult Mr Coppola, I don't know. All I know is that if The Godfather's Revenge is as badly constructed as The Godfather Returns/The Lost Years, there'll be more of the same of this for that particular book.
