An offer you can't refuse?

Mark Winegardner, author of the bestselling 2004 novel The Godfather Returns (authorised by the estate of the author of the original trilogy, Mario Puzo, following a national competition to find a writer to expand the lucrative franchise) is working on a new novel. The Godfather's Revenge will feature the same familiar cast of characters (those members of it, that is, who haven't already been dispatched to sleep with the fishes) - but the big news is that the story will focus on no lesser an event than the assassination of JFK. A spokesman from the estate's publisher, GP Putnam, described it as "fitting" that the latest installment of the Godfather story will "overlay the resonant mythology of the Corleone family onto the most vexing real-life mystery of our age, with a story line that explores the role organised crime may have had in the assassination of a charismatic young president." Fans will have to wait until next year to discover whether Winegardner is prepared to provide a new angle for conspiracy theorists on the 20th-century's most famous whodunit.