Mafia

Mafia is an explosive mixture of psychology and a detective story, usually played with a deck of cards. Unlike many other card games, this one has a known year of creation—1986—and a known author—Dmitry Davidov, who, not surprisingly, was a psychology student at Moscow State University. The Mafia quickly gained a following and spread worldwide.

This official edition includes such nice extras as the story of its creation, a set of rules, roles from the author, and some popular variations. It’s totally legal to use breaks between Mafia sessions to play anything from solitaire to poker with the same deck.