Just finished reading it - yeah, despite all the slagging that GFIII receives, this one would have been much worse. It almost takes the same approach as the despised Winegardner novels, following some new character we barely know, & who doesn't even feel like a GF character, more like one who would be more comfortable in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.
The ones we do care about have little more than cameo roles - change a few names & no one would think this has anything to do with the Godfather at all.

Few little things:

- Rocco Lampone is in it, but wasn't he killed in Part II while he was about to assassinate Hyman Roth?

- the union leader (I'm guessing loosely based on Jimmy Hoffa) is called Danny DeVito!

- as mentioned, the scene with Tony Corleone & the reporter is basically the exact same scene as with Vincent & Grace in GFIII. It's the sole connection between the two versions, but I've seen a few websites that claim Riesner worked uncredited with Puzo on the screenplay of GFIII that was made - anyone know anything about this? (I think they're probably mistaken, assuming that this script is somehow a first draft)