The Italian Book Club 2016
What we read
Game of Mirrors
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Game of Mirrors is the eighteenth exciting instalment in the Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camilleri.
When Montalbano comes to the aid of his new neighbour, Liliana Lombardo, after the engine of her car is interfered with, the inspector can little imagine where this innocuous event will lead. It soon transpires that the young woman - beautiful, intelligent and rather vague about the whereabouts of her husband - is being targeted by someone with a grudge against her. But is Liliana's growing interest in Montalbano simply a product of the detective's innate charm? Or is she trying to lead him astray - and into trouble? Meanwhile the inspector finds himself drawn into another mystery when a bomb explodes outside an empty warehouse in Vigàta. But who was the bomb intended for? And why was it left in such a peculiar place? As Montalbano and his colleagues investigate the street's residents - some of whom have suspicious mafia links - they begin to receive a barrage of false clues from an anonymous source. As Liliana's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and leaks around the case threaten Montalbano's reputation; the sense of danger grows. The inspector soon realizes that, with this investigation, he is being led into a hall of mirrors, where there is danger at every turn and nothing is quite clear . . .
When Montalbano comes to the aid of his new neighbour, Liliana Lombardo, after the engine of her car is interfered with, the inspector can little imagine where this innocuous event will lead. It soon transpires that the young woman - beautiful, intelligent and rather vague about the whereabouts of her husband - is being targeted by someone with a grudge against her. But is Liliana's growing interest in Montalbano simply a product of the detective's innate charm? Or is she trying to lead him astray - and into trouble? Meanwhile the inspector finds himself drawn into another mystery when a bomb explodes outside an empty warehouse in Vigàta. But who was the bomb intended for? And why was it left in such a peculiar place? As Montalbano and his colleagues investigate the street's residents - some of whom have suspicious mafia links - they begin to receive a barrage of false clues from an anonymous source. As Liliana's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and leaks around the case threaten Montalbano's reputation; the sense of danger grows. The inspector soon realizes that, with this investigation, he is being led into a hall of mirrors, where there is danger at every turn and nothing is quite clear . . .
The Deliverance of Evil
by Roberto Costantini
The Deliverance of Evil is a masterful psychological thriller about an edgy policeman’s personal evolution - or devolution - as seen through the lens of a devilish case that consumed him early in his career and continues to haunt him twenty-four years later. Commissario Michele Balistreri is a handsome young man who is easily able to find young women to sleep with him and then he moves on, without a backward glance to his next conquest. His brother, Alberto, and friends despair of him. On the day of the World Cup final in 1982 he calls on his friend, Angelo, at his work in an Vatican office in a private residential complex and sees the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Elisa Sordi is a saint, he is told, out of his reach. When she is reported missing, Balistreri is called away from the match, unwillingly since Italy is winning, to investigate. Drunk, annoyed and frustrated at missing the action, he makes a cursory examination. When her mutilated body is recovered from the river, he finally realises the impact of his less than perfect enquiry. In 2006, the Italian team is again in the final and the whole country has caught World Cup fever again and Balistreri heads Rome's Special Section. When the body of a young woman is found, Balistreri is alone in trying to keep an open mind when the local Roma community are accused of harbouring the criminals who assaulted and killed her. Three young men are charged with the crime but more deaths occur and Balistreri and his team slowly uncover a conspiracy linking the government, the Vatican and certain members of the police forces. He remembers Elisa’s unsolved death and begins to see connections. Aware of his faults after the death of Elisa, Ballistreri’s life and health have suffered over the years. To discover the truth about Elisa's death and to find the killer, he must identify all the lies that he is being told. He is joined in his search by Linda Nardi, a freelance reporter, but her motives are not as clear cut as they seem. She has knowledge of the crimes that have been kept back by the investigators and Balistreri develops an emotional tie to her that hinders rather than helps. This is the first of a trilogy of novels featuring Michele Balistreri and I will be looking out for the others.
By its Cover
by Donna Leon
One afternoon, Commissario Guido Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a round of questioning, the case seems clear: the culprit must be the man who requested the volumes, an American professor from a Kansas university. The only problem - the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, the American professor doesn’t exist.
As the investigation proceeds, the suspects multiply. And when a seemingly harmless theologian, who had spent three years at the library reading the Fathers of the Church, turns up brutally murdered, Brunetti must question his expectations about what makes a man innocent, or guilty.
By Its Cover is the 23rd book of the Brunetti series.
As the investigation proceeds, the suspects multiply. And when a seemingly harmless theologian, who had spent three years at the library reading the Fathers of the Church, turns up brutally murdered, Brunetti must question his expectations about what makes a man innocent, or guilty.
By Its Cover is the 23rd book of the Brunetti series.
A Fine Line
by Gianrico Carofiglio
Guerrieri, a middle-aged lawyer in Bari, Italy, who spends more time eating well than drinking these days, hires attractive PI Annapaola Doria, a former freelance crime reporter, to help him defend a judge, Pierluigi Larocca, who’s charged with corruption. But the case against Larocca is incidental to Geurrieri’s thoughts on getting older, his witty observations of his colleagues (a legal trainee has the “expression of a psychotic pigeon”), and his struggle with his attraction to Annapaola. It’s a combination that works because of Guerrieri’s strong narrative voice and wry sense of humor. Readers looking for hard-boiled (or even soft-boiled) investigating might be disappointed — most of that’s handled off-page by Annapaola — but there are enough great courtroom cross-examination scenes to satisfy readers who want them.
The fifth in the best-selling Guido Guerrieri series.
The novel is a suspenseful legal thriller but it is also much more. It is the story of a judge who, to quote Dostoevsky, "lies to himself and listens to his own lies, so gets to the point where he can no longer distinguish the truth, either in himself or around himself."
The fifth in the best-selling Guido Guerrieri series.
The novel is a suspenseful legal thriller but it is also much more. It is the story of a judge who, to quote Dostoevsky, "lies to himself and listens to his own lies, so gets to the point where he can no longer distinguish the truth, either in himself or around himself."
Black Run
by Antonio Manzini
After getting into serious trouble with the wrong people, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone is exiled to Aosta, a small, touristy alpine town far from his beloved Rome.
The sophisticated yet crotchety Roman despises mountains, snow, and the provincial locals as much as he disdains his superiors and their petty rules. But he loves solving crimes.
When a mangled body is discovered on a slope above Champoluc, Rocco immediately faces his first challenge - identifying the victim, a complex procedure complicated by his ignorance of the customs, dialect, and history of his new home.
Proud and undaunted, Rocco makes his way among the ski runs, mountain huts, and aerial tramways, meeting instructors, alpine guides, the enigmatic folk of Aosta, and a few beautiful locals eager to give him a warm welcome.
It won't be easy, this mountain life, especially with a corpse or two in the mix. But then there's nothing that makes Rocco feel more at home than an investigation.
An insightful observer of human nature, Antonio Manzini writes with sly humor and a dash of irony, introducing an irresistible hero - a fascinating blend of swagger, machismo, and vulnerability - in a colorful and atmospheric mystery series that is European crime fiction at its best.
The sophisticated yet crotchety Roman despises mountains, snow, and the provincial locals as much as he disdains his superiors and their petty rules. But he loves solving crimes.
When a mangled body is discovered on a slope above Champoluc, Rocco immediately faces his first challenge - identifying the victim, a complex procedure complicated by his ignorance of the customs, dialect, and history of his new home.
Proud and undaunted, Rocco makes his way among the ski runs, mountain huts, and aerial tramways, meeting instructors, alpine guides, the enigmatic folk of Aosta, and a few beautiful locals eager to give him a warm welcome.
It won't be easy, this mountain life, especially with a corpse or two in the mix. But then there's nothing that makes Rocco feel more at home than an investigation.
An insightful observer of human nature, Antonio Manzini writes with sly humor and a dash of irony, introducing an irresistible hero - a fascinating blend of swagger, machismo, and vulnerability - in a colorful and atmospheric mystery series that is European crime fiction at its best.
The Dark Valley
by Valerio Varesi
It is autumn in Parma. Commissario Soneri decides to escape the city to return to his home village in the Appenines for a much-needed holiday. He plans to spend the time hunting for mushrooms on the wooded slopes of Montelupo. The small and isolated village revolves around the fortunes of the Rodolfi family, salami manufacturers for generations. Its patriarch, the gifted Palmiro, runs a tight ship, but behind the scenes, all is not well: his son, Paride, has other plans for his future. And then all of a sudden the family finds itself in the throes of a financial scandal, with worrying implications for the entire community. Soon afterwards a hiker discovers a decomposing body in the woods. After initial protestations, Soneri soon gives up all hope of a peaceful break. The complicated relationship he uncovers between Rodolfi and his son becomes all the more pertinent when he learns that his own father and Palmiro Ridolfi were once friends.
Game for Five
by Marco Malvaldi
Game for Five is the first in Marco Malvaldi's “Bar Lume” series. Set in Pineta, a once-sleepy town in Tuscany, the Bar Lume is where a group of four sometimes crotchety but also "sprightly old-timers" like to come to while away their time. The main character is bar-owner Massimo, who runs the place his own way -- with firm ideas of when to serve what beverages (especially in this heat), and not going too far out of his way if he doesn't feel like it.
Massimo lets himself be drawn into the old geezers' card games (all the novels in the series feature card-game-related titles), but here he finds himself drawn into a murder case too, after a very inebriated youngster comes into the bar having discovered a corpse in the trash nearby. Massimo doesn't jump into trying to solve the case, but since the man in charge of the investigation is Inspector Fusco, in whom it's impossible to find anything that "inspired the slightest sympathy", he eventually can't help but get involved.
Massimo lets himself be drawn into the old geezers' card games (all the novels in the series feature card-game-related titles), but here he finds himself drawn into a murder case too, after a very inebriated youngster comes into the bar having discovered a corpse in the trash nearby. Massimo doesn't jump into trying to solve the case, but since the man in charge of the investigation is Inspector Fusco, in whom it's impossible to find anything that "inspired the slightest sympathy", he eventually can't help but get involved.
The Girl with the Crystal Eyes
by Barbara Baraldi
Hot off the Italian charts, this serial killer chiller introduces a remarkable noir writer whose tales of bloody imagination and seductive perversity recall the films of Dario Argento
This unforgettable gothic journey through the dark streets of Bologna follows a beautiful killer, a cop determined to unravel an enigmatic tale of bloody butchery, and a young medium fleeing her past. A twisted game of life and death unfolds between the hunter and the hunted, murderer and detective, night and day, and the female of the species proves as daringly evil as Hannibal Lecter, giving a whole new meaning to "femme fatale."
This unforgettable gothic journey through the dark streets of Bologna follows a beautiful killer, a cop determined to unravel an enigmatic tale of bloody butchery, and a young medium fleeing her past. A twisted game of life and death unfolds between the hunter and the hunted, murderer and detective, night and day, and the female of the species proves as daringly evil as Hannibal Lecter, giving a whole new meaning to "femme fatale."