be smiling.

Over in Japan, the yakuza are outsourcing the violent element of their activities to gangs from the Chinese mainland who face merely a short spell in jail and deportation if caught. And jail, of course, is a handy by-product of international crime. The prison-industrial complex in the United States, on which so many small towns now depend, relies for its continued success on a regular supply of inmates.

Can all this ever be halted? The obvious answer might seem to be the legalisation of drugs, which I for one support. But that may be too little, too late; Glenny points out how interwoven globalisation has made the licit and illicit economies. Maybe only the fall-out from the credit crunch, and the regulation that might bring, can hold back the tide.

One small complaint: the title. One colleague thought McMafia must be a book on Scottish gangsters. Sadly not: these are very changed days from those of the 1930s recession, when organised crime in Britain meant a Glasgow gang armed with razors.