The godfather referred to in the title is Vito, but the story's main character becomes Michael. Vito Corleone is also godfather to the famous singer and movie star Johnny Fontane. He also has an informally adopted Irish son, Tom Hagen, who became the Corleone family's consigliere (counselor). Vito fathered four children: Sonny Corleone, Fredo Corleone, Michael Corleone, and Connie Corleone. His birth name is Vittorio Andolini, but after immigrating to the United States following the deaths of his parents and brother, he changed it to the name of his home village as one of his few acts of sentimentality. The Corleone family patriarch is Vito Corleone (the Don), whose surname represents the Sicilian town of his birth, Corleone. After selling all of the family's remaining businesses in New York, the Corleones permanently move to Las Vegas. This encompasses the murder of all of the Corleone family's enemies, including Michael's brother-in-law Carlo Rizzi, who played a part in Sonny's murder. Under his retired father's tutelage, Michael orchestrates a plan to exact revenge, while relocating the Corleone family's power base to Las Vegas in order to further his goal of legitimizing the family and getting them out of organized crime.

Michael must return from hiding in Sicily to assume control of the family as the new Don. When Michael murders Sollozzo and his bodyguard, corrupt NYPD Captain Mark McCluskey, while meeting with them in a restaurant, the conflict escalates into a full-scale war which results in Sonny's murder. After Don Vito Corleone is shot by men working for drug kingpin Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo, two of Corleone's sons, Santino (Sonny) and Michael, must run the family business with the help of consigliere Tom Hagen and the family's two trusted caporegimes, Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio. The Corleone family, one of the Five Families of the New York Mafia, fights the other four families in a brutal war in the years after World War II. Two film sequels, including new contributions by Puzo himself, were made in 19. It inspired a 1972 film of the same name. The first in a series of novels, The Godfather is noteworthy for introducing Italian words like consigliere, caporegime, Cosa Nostra, and omertà to an English-speaking audience.

The novel covers the years 1945 to 1955 and includes the back story of Vito Corleone from early childhood to adulthood. Putnam's Sons, the novel details the story of a fictional Mafia family in New York City (and Long Island), headed by Vito Corleone, the Godfather.

The Godfather is a crime novel by American author Mario Puzo.

God shot novel