Michael Corleone is returning to the U.S. after the two-year exile to Sicily in which reader left him in The Godfather. But he is ordered to bring with him the young Sicilian bandit, Salvatore Guiliano, who is the unofficial ruler of northwestern Sicily. In his fight "to make Sicilians free people," the young folk hero, based on the real-life Giuliano of the 1940's, has made both the police and the Mafia his enemies. So when Don Croce Malo, chief of the Sicilian Mafia, and the policemen who has been tracking Guiliano each offer to help Corleone find the elusive Robin Hood, betrayal seems inevitable.
Mario Puzo has created a sequel to The Godfather that is every bit as compelling and dramatic. But The Sicilian is a distinct literary achievement in its historical inspiration and its vivid portrait of Sicilian peasant life.