John Sweeney

Laughing all the Way to the Money-Launderers

McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers

By

The Bodley Head 426pp £12.99 order from our bookshop

This is a big, noble book by a proper reporter who travels the world and gives the Mr Bigs of global crime a poke in the eye. His grand thesis is that we need effective world government to deal with the globalisation of money-laundering, drugs, arms-dealing and narco-trafficking. One is inclined to say: fat chance.

Misha Glenny was the BBC reporter in Yugoslavia in 1990 who prophesied gloom and was taken aside by the thought police and told to cheer up. Glenny was proved right as Tito’s old Yugoslavia splintered apart, and some of the best writing in the book concerns the Balkans mafia.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'The physical courage he demonstrated as a young man [...] gave way to intellectual power; radical thought, gifted… ,
    • 'While Jane Austen didn’t perhaps achieve the full recognition that she deserved in her lifetime, even then she out… ,
    • 'All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And t… ,
    • 'You are interested in a particular subject; basic research hardens this interest into an obsession, after which th… ,
    • 'Keynes predicted that future generations would enjoy such an improved standard of living that they might work just… ,
    • 'Various dislocations ... emerge, iceberg-like, out of a troubled sea of unconscious motivation and confront Eisenb… ,
    • Today is the first today of the – they've got some excellent events coming up over the next two weeks.… ,
    Follow Us