Barbie Latza Nadeau: The Godmother

 Why are we so obsessed with the mob? Can women be just as cutthroat? Is Italian culture too macho? We have all the answers (not!) in our chat from Rome with Barbie Latza Nadeau about her new book “The Godmother”. She tells us about admiring and reviling “Pupetta” , who, ya, shot her husband’s killer and became a mafia icon. Barbie got to interview her just before she died. She spills about Mafia women and refusing to be intimidated after the attack on Salman Rushdie.

Barbie Latza Nadeau is the Rome correspondent for the Daily Beast. She also wrote about Sex, Murder and the Italian sex trade involving Nigerian women, and “Baby Face: Sex Drugs and the Inside Story of Amanda Knox”, which was turned into a movie. She has just published The Godmother: Murder , Vengeance and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women”. (Out September 7) Sex and violence are always a theme. And Pupetta , or Lady Camorra, knew it. Barbie tells how women are taking on more of a role in a mafia culture that never dies.