THE GOOD MOTHERS

You are born into it or marry in. Loyalty is absolute, bloodshed revered and you kill or go to your grave before betraying The Family. This code of omerta is how the 'Ndrangheta became the world's most powerful mafia.

The Good Mothers is the story of the women who broke the silence. We live in their buildings, work in their companies, shop in their stores, eat in their restaurants and elect politicians they fund. Founded more than 150 years ago by shepherding families in the toe of Italy, the 'Ndrangheta is today the world's most powerful mafia, with a crushing presence in southern Italy, a market-moving size in global finance and a reach that extends to fifty countries around the world.

And yet, remarkably, few of us have ever heard of it. The 'Ndrangheta's power rests on a code of silence, omerta, enforced by a claustrophobic family hierarchy and murderous misogyny. Men and boys rule.

Girls are married off as teenagers in arranged clan alliances. Beatings are routine. A woman who is `unfaithful' - even to a dead husband - can expect her sons, brothers or father to kill her to erase the `family shame'.