What if you belonged nowhere and to no one? What if you learned as a teenager that the father who had mistreated you for years wasn’t your father at all–and that you were actually born to the mistress of a Greek gangster? And what if the only way to connect with your real father was to become his fiercest rival?

Kevin Cunningham was born in Tarpon Springs, Florida, just another kid from the wrong side of the tracks. But from his first days Kevin gravitated towards power, and in Tarpon Springs that meant local crime boss Lukie Pappas. As a boy, Kevin hung out at the Pappas Restaurant, and he saw how the townspeople approached Lukie. How they respected him. How they came to him for help. How they called him nounos–Greek for “godfather.” From the shadows, Kevin admired it all.

When he turned seventeen, Kevin’s world flipped upside down. His dying father confessed that Kevin was the son of another man–and not just any man. He was the son of Lukie Pappas. Suddenly, his destiny was clear. His lineage became his fate. His rightful place was beside the Greek godfather who ruled his hometown.

But Lukie coldly rejected him, as both a son and a colleague. Fueled by rage and pride, Kevin claimed the Pappas name as his own and embarked on his own criminal enterprise. From two-bit swindling he rose quickly to high-stakes drug trafficking. Money laundering, gun running, and racketeering polished his underworld résumé, even as they placed him squarely in the crosshairs of every federal agency with three initials and a most-wanted list. And when he got caught, Kevin’s time behind bars only honed his criminalinstinct, hardened his resolve, and cemented his reputation as a larger-than-life outlaw who sometimes went down but could never be taken out.

Still in his early twenties but as powerful as any crime boss, Kevin surrounded himself with an elite group, a posse that called itself The Band of Five. They wanted for nothing, as they were flush with fast cars, boats, planes and women, but their antics invited violent attempts to bring Kevin to his senses, or at least to his knees.

More than a gripping tale, GODFATHER OF NIGHT unveils the Greek-American crime syndicate and its close alignment to power from Pennsylvania Avenue to the halls of the Justice Department, and takes readers to a dark place where high-level crime, government corruption, and family secrets collide. Kevin Pappas’s story is a true crime epic for a new generation of wiseguys–full of the harrowing war stories and hard-won wisdom of a man who lived by his own rules, broke everyone else’s, and dared the world to try and stop him.

1 Comment

1. KM Cote says:

   May 5th, 2009

   Here is the first review that we have received prior to print,
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   Book Reviews
   Godfather of Night Book Review by Gerald Dore
   Wow! This is the first time I have read a book from beginning to end and didn’t want to put it down. Because of other commitments I had to. This book, this true story, is riveting, compelling, and has several life altering messages.

   Many men, including myself, will relate to this story of Kevin Pappas’s journey through life, not because of the drugs, cars, gold, unlimited amount of cash and the women but because of events that took place in his early years of development that set the stage for how his early adult life would unfold. A father that did not show love and affection, and did not validate his son’s worth and purpose in being born. A mother who was not true to her son and did not teach the importance and value of integrity, commitment, and morals.

   The life of Kevin Pappas is a journey of twist and turns to find his acceptance, find validation and prove to himself he was loveable and capable of love and devotion. Most men will do anything for the love of women, not physical sex but true love for who he is, and the understanding of where his true heart lies.

   As I read this book I felt I was in the story. It was easy to read and understand. I was right there with the story teller. The book keeps your interest an provides vivid incites into the underworld many people are oblivious to yet at the same time it tells a compelling story of on man’s struggle to find love and acceptance. Great!

   Jerry Dor

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