I have played Mafia III almost to completion and I love it, same as I loved the 1st 2 installments when I played those.
The setting, story, characters, depth of the world, it’s just a damn fun ride.
Recently, I discovered this book and I think the 60 or so other reviews I’ve done here on the site make it painfully obvious that I fuckin’ LOVE me some tie-in novels, so it should be a win-win, right?
Or, could this be an outlier, one of the few tie-ins I’ve read that seems like the authors have absolutely no understanding of the material they’re sheparding?
I believe the time has come to find out, gang.
As always, this is your official ***SPOILER ALERT***, Gang.
When I first found this book I thought it was gonna be about a young Lincoln Clay in New Bordeaux (the Mafia universe’s version of New Orleans) helping Sammy Robinson take over Delray Hollow.
An interesting, though predictable, tale to be sure.
I’m glad to say it subverted those expectations and told a totally different tale of Lincoln coming into his own.
Set in the middle of the Vietnam War, Lincoln Clay is on the front lines, in the heat of a battle he makes a split second decision that gets him noticed and quickly leads to him getting a green beret crash course and a covert mission.
It’s so satisfying to actually see Lincoln develop the skills you get to later utilize in the game.
Specifically, though it’s a staple of the series, it’s so cool to see Lincoln learn how to take down a corrupt organization through the lieutenants.
And who actually teaches him that particular skill makes it even more badass.
For the purpose of writing reviews alone, I’ve really grown to hate having 2 authors on a book because I feel like you can’t sufficiently give credit where credit is due.
It seems everybody always wants to give credit for a good story to the more experienced/well known authors, in this case that would be Jeff Mariotte, who I know from his Spider-Man and DC novels, but I know better than to go down that path.
But I just can’t quite put my finger on what would be Marsheila Rockwell’s style or contributions, which is a positive and a negative at the same time.
Positive because it doesn’t feel like 2 people are competing to tell separate stories and being forced to jam them together.
Negative because I can’t see the seams.
All I can say for certain is that these 2 make 1 hell of a team, and I’m interested in checking out more of their collaborations now.
The bottomline is that while this is jam packed with easter eggs for fans of the the series, and Mafia III in particular, I’d definitely say it’s not just for fans.
The accessibility is pretty open to the wider world, especially if you dig the pulpy style of the era in which this is set.
It has a great story of brutal war strategy sprinkled into an already rich world.
It’s funny, I have played the game since and it does make certain areas of the map feel just a little bit deeper, and at the end of the day that’s exactly what a good tie-in novel should do, deepen the experience.
So if any of that sounds like something you’d dig, then I highly encourage you to take the plunge, gang.
Let us know what you think of this review in the comments below or share this post on Twitter with the Hashtag #TNBBookReview.
Special thanks to @ACFerrell1976 for her continued editorial assistance.
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And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
