Product Details
Luciano's Luck

Luciano's Luck
By Jack Higgins

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Product Description

A young nun, a British intelligence agent, and American gangster ""Lucky"" Luciano parachute into Nazi-occupied Sicily to convince a mafia chieftain to cooperate with the Allies. Reprint. NYT.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1624407 in Books
  • Published on: 1981-06
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 238 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Dove Audio goes to the head of the pack with this exciting, unabridged rendition of Higgins's (Sheba, Audio Reviews, LJ 2/15/95) story of an Allied plan to release Lucky Luciano from prison. Luciano is slated to join a team that includes the granddaughter of Luciano's Mafia counterpart in Sicily and a crack Special Services operative. Their objective: to persuade the Don to rally the people of Sicily to aid the Allies in their effort to run the Axis forces off the island, paving the way for the Allied invasion of Italy. The action builds to a riveting climax and concomitant bloody conclusion. British actor and former Avenger Patrick Macnee is required to juggle Sicilian, German, American, and Ukrainian accents and does so superbly. Best of all, this unabridged recording is reasonably priced. Recommended for most public libraries.?Mark Pumphrey, Polk Cty. P.L., Columbus, N.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Since The Eagle Has Landeda "one of the biggest-selling thrillers of all timea "every novel Jack Higgins has written, including his most recent works, Bad Company and Midnight Runner, has become an international bestseller. He has had simultaneous number-one bestsellers in hardcover and paperback, and many of his books have been made into successful movies, including The Eagle Has Landed, To Catch a King, On Dangerous Ground, Eye of the Storm, and Thunder Point.
He has degrees in sociology, social psychology, and economics from the University of London, and a doctorate in media from Leeds Metropolitan University. A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an expert scuba diver and marksman, Higgins lives in Jersey on the Channel Islands.


Patrick Macnee was born in 1922 in London, England, into a wealthy and eccentric family. Macnee first appeared on stage and made his film debut as an extra in Pygmalion. After World War II, he resumed his stage and film career, with bit parts such as Young Jacob Marley in Scrooge. The role that brought him worldwide fame and popularity was the part of John Steed, in the classic British television series The Avengers. During the 1980s and 1990s, Macnee became a familiar face on American television in such series as Gavilan, Empire, Thunder in Paradise and Night Man. In the past decade, Macnee has also made several audio recordings of book fiction.

Customer Reviews

Luciano's Luck is a very well constructed novel.4
Luciano's Luck is a wonderfully written novel about
the US government's desperate attempt to persuade
the Mafia to assist them during World War II.
Don Antonio Luca, the "Boss of All Bosses"
of the Mafia in Sicily has the power to drive all
Nazi forces out of Italy and Sicily, but he has an extreme dislike for Americans
and is reluctant to help them in any way.
Only two people have the slightest chance of persuading
him: his only granddaughter who ran away
from him years ago, and Lucky Luciano, the
most feared gangster in America.

A good read4
Having read this book almost 12 years ago, I must say that it was a good book if I can still remember it. The story might seem a little far fetched to beleive, but it is an interesting one. Higgins has written an exciting story filled with adventure and suspense that keeps the readers attention. Its also not the long of a book to rea so that is also an advantage to the reader. In all, it is a well written novel

Higgins Turns a Plot4
Carter is a former agent with ground knowledge in the hills of Sicily, where the Allied landing forces will need the cooperation of resistance fighters to avoid heavy losses to the occupying German forces. Carter has to recruit Luciano, a convict with Mafia ties, and Maria who has fled the mother country to escape the abuses of the underworld, represented by her grandfather, the key figure needed to coalesce the resistance fighters with the Allied cause.

After I read a couple of mentions of Higgins in books on writing, I pulled this off the library shelf. Higgins knows how to get right into the action of a story and move the plot to adventure. He skillfully sets all the elements in place to give a dramatic story with action and conflict. The characters are a step above cardboard cut-outs, serving to propel events, and scenes are quick-cut, keeping the reading at a brisk pace. In all, it's a quick read that isn't entirely predictable.