Godfather II by Mario Puzo

After he kills the Turk and his policeman, Mike has to be smuggled out of America, and is sent to Sicily where he can hide for a year or 2. In New York, the mafia families have an internal war, and Sonny, Michael's hot headed violent brother gets killed. Kay Adams is questioned by police who tell her that her boyfriend killed a policeman and a mob leader and is wanted for murder. She is appalled, since she beleives Michael is a gentle young man who would never harm anyone. Then she visits Mrs Corleone, who tells her that Michael is away and wont be back in America for some time and that she should find another young man and get married, that he's not the man for her. Kay is shaken that it seems Mrs Corleone believes her son is a killer. Michael spends some time in Sicily, where he is guarded by the local mafia leader, who controls an estate in the area. He has bodyguards and for a time he enjoys life there. He learns about Sicily, how most of the local people are desperately poor by American standards, and how nobody trusts the state at all so they have chosen to live under the protection of the Mafia even though they are exploited by them. Don Vito recovers from his shooting but his health is not what it was, and he cannot stop the war among the families which he knows will reduce mafia power. Fredo goes to Las Vegas where the family have hotels and casinos, and where they hope to move away from organised crime. He is considered unmanly by his father because he enjoys gambling and womanising.... and he may be a weak link in the family chain. Michael and his bodyguards go walking one day when he has been in Sicily for some time. He knows he will probalby be there for a couple of years, so he makes the best of his exile. Then he meets a local girl Appollonia who is dazzlingly beautiful and he falls in love with her. She is a simple inexperienced girl who knows little about life outside her village and has had little education but she and Michael fall in love and he marries her. He remains smitten with her, even though she is very unlike the much more intelligent and independent Kay. Then some months after their marriage, she is learning to drive his car when the car blows up. Michael finds out later that the killers were trying to kill him, and they think they have done so. Don Tomassino, the local leader, hides him away and then prepares to send him back to America, because the Corleones have persauded someone else to confess to the murder of Solozzo, and he can now go home.