SOURCE: "Appraising Condon's Latest 'Prizzi'," in Chicago Tribune, February 20, 1994, sec. 14, p. 7.

In the following excerpt, Petrakos gives a brief, favorable review of Prizzi's Money.

Malice, greed, violent death, betrayal, conspiracy—only Richard Condon can write about such matters and leave his readers feeling cheerful and refreshed. While Condon's new book, Prizzi's Money, is not quite up to his previous volumes on the first family of crime, it still delivers enough jabs to the bloated gut of American culture to keep the pages turning at high speed.

The book begins with the spectacular kidnapping of political heavyweight Henry George Asbury, a man who has "been seriously involved with every mirror he ever met." But the kidnapping is simply a money-making scheme hatched by Asbury and his very cunning wife, Julia, who also happens to be the daughter of a Mafia hitman, the Plumber.

Henry has made a big mistake...