Joe Lucadello
Joseph P. Lucadello (also known as Ike Rosen) is a fictional character in Mark Winegardner's novels The Godfather Returns and The Godfather's Revenge. Both novels are based on the original novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
The Godfather Returns introduces Lucadello as an informant to the Corleone family and a CIA agent who originally enlists in the Canadian Air Force under Billy Bishop in 1941. Before this, he served in the Civilian Conservation Corps with Michael Corleone. Fearing Benito Mussolini's rise to power, the two falsify pilot's licenses to join Bishop, but Michael's father Vito Corleone tips Bishop off, and Michael admits the truth to avoid damaging Lucadello's chances. During World War II, Lucadello loses an eye, afterward wearing an eye patch and, later, a glass prosthetic. After the war, he leaves the Air Force and becomes a CIA agent. He eventually becomes the main assistant of the CIA director, Albert Soffet.
Around this time, he begins informing the Corleone family of the CIA's plans to confront organized crime. Lucadello meets with Michael Corleone several times, although these meetings are not specifically for business. The novel characterizes Lucadello as the closest thing Michael has to a friend; nevertheless, Michael does not fully trust him.
In The Godfather Returns, Lucadello is assigned to oversee a failed plot to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1959. In 1962, after a Castro body double is killed, he is assigned to eliminate the assassin, Carmine Marino.
In The Godfather Returns, Lucadello informs main antagonist Nick Geraci, a former Corleone family caporegime who seeks to dethrone Michael as head of the family, that Michael is planning to assassinate him. Michael never discovers who betrayed him, and despite the fierce attempt to locate Geraci, he never finds him. At the end of the novel, Lucadello is found dead with an icepick penetrating his only eye.
