Originally Posted By: Turnbull
The novel says that the others in the room were "astonished" that Michael asked Carlo about his guilt when it was plain that Carlo was guilty. Puzo wrote that they thought this proved that Michael was "not yet the man his father was."
I had another view: Michael, by making Carlo confess and giving him a phony reason for hope, may simultaneously have been trying to prove a point to Tom, etc., that he could be quietly forceful (as well as ordering violence), and be avoiding a possibly messy scene in the Mall (where his wife sleeps, where his children play with their toys) by conning Carlo peacefully into the car to be garrotted.


But the novel is also very clear about why Michael wanted an explicit confession from Carlo:

"Michael was still not confident of his right, still feared being unjust, still worried about the fraction of an uncertainty that only a confession by Carlo Rizzi could erase" (p. 436).