Carl Russo is a San Francisco Bay Area native who has written for the Oakland Tribune, Indiewire and other publications. Russo fell in love with Sicily on his first trip to the island in 1999 and has returned many times since. In 2010, he began a blog, Mafia Exposed, which became the basis for his book. Russo was also a radio producer and disc jockey at KUSF-FM, San Francisco, from 1990 to 2003.

His book is entitled: The Sicilian Mafia: A True Crime Travel Guide