I have one question, why, of all the people in the world did they choose Winegardner to write the book.
That question still baffles me to this day. I own most of puzo's books, and those of his published by Ballantine have a little article at the end talking about the editors search for somebody to write GFR.

They said they needed somebody at roughly the same stage Puzo was in when he wrote the original Godfather, in '69. Okay, so, yes, Mark here's in his mid 40's, and has 2 other books to his credit. Why did they do it like this?
If they honestly chose the author based on this information, they've got to be the biggest idiots ever. Honestly, they even got hundreds of outlines from other writers, were they honestly THAT bad, that you need to choose this guy. Give me a break, is obvious that the publishers didnt seem to care about what Winegardner was even doing with the series.
Mark Winegardner was so obviously the worst choice for continuing a classic series.