Book Talk: Lisa Scottoline, ‘Loyalty’

If Ken Follett’s “The Evening and the Morning” is a prequel to his smash hit “Pillars of the Earth,” then Lisa Scottoline’s “Loyalty” (2023, 413 pages in hardback format) is the prequel to Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather.” It’s that good.

Follett’s prequel is set about a century before “Pillars.” Scottoline’s “Loyalty” set in Sicily, takes place about a century before the Mafia became a vast system of organized crime. After we’re introduced to the quiet, peaceful life Alfredo lives with his “daughters” (the goats that he milks to make his “miracle” cheese), Scottoline transports us to bustling, urban Palermo where the Festival of St. Rosalia is in full swing.

While people’s attention is averted by the excitement, a man wraps his cloak around a six-year-old boy and makes off with him. The boy, Dante, was to be killed, but instead he is taken to a “madhouse” where insane people are kept in a medieval dungeon.