‘Would that the bleak Neopolitan underworld that Saviano so skilfully depicts in Gomorrah be crime fiction. Alas, it’s crime reality – a tragic, brutal and bloody reality that has been turned into a recently released film. The book charts the rise of the criminal syndicate the Camorra and its illegal activities which range from drug peddling and prostitution to murder and arms-dealing. A profoundly powerful book.’ The Independent
'This is a devastating, courageously researched work; important not just for Italians but for all who are concerned about the development of European civilisation.’ Sunday Herald
'Part economic analysis, part social history, part cri de coeur, this crushing testimonial is the most important book to come out of Italy in years. Like Conrad’s London, Saviano’s Naples is also one of the dark places of the earth. He tugged a loose thread in the fabric of Italian bourgeois respectability and kept pulling until nothing was left.' New York Times
‘A kaleidoscopic personal testimony rooted in a visceral rage and revulsion at what organised crime has done to one of the most beautiful places on earth. … Organised crime is a permanent emergency in southern Italy, and it has never been written about with such guts and passion … Read this important book, and you will appreciate why Italy is still a country that needs heroes like him.' John Dickie, Guardian Review
‘a superb piece of investigative reporting … Saviano is without question a winning young man with real potential as a writer’
Misha Glenny, The Sunday Times
‘Every so often, when reading Saviano's book, Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia, published in Britain this Friday, you have to pause, and remember he is writing not about some war-torn African territory or former communist state, but about life in a big city in a rich nation in western Europe; a founder-member of the European Union; a favourite destination for low-cost flyers, and a country whose affairs are increasingly - and, Saviano suggests, dangerously - bound up with ours.’ John Hooper, Guardian G2
'The most important book to come out of Italy in years ... I could not get this brave book out of my head. After reading Gomorrah, it becomes impossible to see Italy, and the global market, in the same way again’ New York Times
‘An eye-popping, hair-raising, stomach-turning book. The mob has never looked so bad – or read so well’ Christian Science Monitor
‘Astonishing …the eyewitness accounts he brings to the page – stories of murderous brutality and devastating debasement – could have been told by one of Dashiell Hammett’s chilly protagonists’ Washington Post
‘Savage and extraordinary … Saviano uses the writing style of Italian investigative reportage – terse, immediate sentences, occasional use of the present tense to describe past events – to do things that Italian investigative reporters rarely do … It’s difficult to convey how well he does this, how well he writes.' The Nation
‘A stunning achievement, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the state of contemporary Europe’ Publishers Weekly
‘This exposé of Naples’s mob, a sensation in Italy, opens with a scene of carnage you won’t forget’ Condé Nast Traveller
‘Through his first-hand observations and interviews, he lays bare the abuses fed by this well-oiled and well-hidden criminal system. Devastating’ Connie Fletcher
‘Gomorrah may frustrate those seeking a streamlined narrative or a novelistic portrait of a particular godfather, but it’s rat-a-tat storytelling provs almost as compelling … Saviano’s anguish over the suffering of the people of Campania is bravely expressed. Buy it.’
New York Magazine
‘A riveting read in which Saviano uses the written word to execute the Camorra’ Gangsters Incorporated
‘A masterpiece.’ The Times
‘Gritty, often heartbreaking, this menacing expose holds you by the throat.’ Evening Standard
‘This book is a passionate eyewitness expose of the Naple-based Comorra, a criminal empire far more murderous and wide-reaching than the Sicilian mafia. The investigative journalist Roberto Saviano’s prose is powerful and poetic; his account of the Comorra’s stranglehold on fashion and building industries, as well drug-trafficking and rubbish-diposal, is unassailably authentic.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘As this torrential narrative reveals, this mainland Mafia is everywhere… In a book packed with murder and beatings, Saviano names names and points to the bodies. Under constant police protection, he was unable to visit the UK to promote this explosion of a book. Naples will never be the same.’ The Independent
‘Saviano calculates that, since his birth in 1979, the Camorra, Naple’s network of organises crime clans, has taken the lives of 3,600 people. The Camorra war forms the background to this expose of organised crime in Naples over the past 15 years. Gomorrah opens exceptionally well with a superb piece of investigative reporting on the clan.’The Sunday Times
‘Unless you fancy dying in a symbolic and grisly fashion, you don't cross a Camorra member, let alone all of them in one go. So rather than celebrating the fact that his book has already sold nearly two million copies in more than 40 countries, and that its City of God-style film adaptation won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year, 'vigilante journalist' Roberto Saviano is in hiding after numerous threats that he will be dead by Christmas. His exposé of the Neapolitan mafia is unprecendently intimate, thanks to a period undercover working in their factories and building sites, participating in their commercial operations and witnessing their merciless and arbitrary murders. The sheer number of families, businesses and killings is almost overwhelming, but the most startling thing is Saviano's courage.’ The Observer
