The Vatican Connection: The True Story of a Billion-Dollar Conspiracy Between the Catholic Church and the Mafia

Winner of the Edgar Award: The riveting account of an audacious fraud scheme that stretched from a Mafia hangout on the Lower East Side to the Vatican.

With a round, open face and a penchant for tall tales, Matteo de Lorenzo resembled everyone’s kindly uncle. But Uncle Marty, as he was known throughout the Genovese crime family, was one of the New York mob’s top earners throughout the 1960s and ’70s, the mastermind of a billion-dollar trade in stolen and counterfeit securities.

In the spr...