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"I think The Dark Arena is a very good book -- very derivative of Hemingway, as many first novels are." --Mario Puzo

They lived in a world of ruthless men and their women. A world of naked power and secret influence. A world outside the law, beyond the law, above the law. They lived in...

The Dark Arena

Love and betrayal in post-war Germany
Walter Mosca, hardened by the brutality and desecration of three long years of way, returns to the USA a changed man. But he has no sooner arrived than he knows he must run back to the land of the enemy, to find the woman who accepts the rage and cruelty of the world around her. Back in Germany, where the bitter aftermath of war is everywhere apparent, American cigarettes will buy almost anything. Against this background the love affair between Mosca and his girlfriend Hella moves to a savage climax as vivid and violent as any scene in The Godfather.

MOSCA was young, tough, ambitious. He liked the wheeling and dealing and he wasn't afraid to kill. But there was one thing he reckoned without. Love.

HELLA loved Mosca more than life itself, which was very dangerous -- for them both.

EDDIE -- a real operator. He cared only for himself and the deals he could make. And when he was drunk, he was vicious.

LEO -- half Jew, half communist. He was between worlds and caught up in the deadly intrigues of Eddie and Mosca.

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The Dark Arena © 1953, 1955 by Mario Puzo

Book dedicated to Erika