Niccolò Ammaniti, Andrea Camilleri, Massimo Carlotto, Carlo Lucarelli, Sandrone Dazieri, Giancarlo De Cataldo. Diego De Silva, Giorgio Faletti, Marcello Fois, Antonio Manzini
Andrew Brown (Traduttore)
Giancarlo De Cataldo (Curatore)
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Italy's best crime writers present nine gripping, often darkly humorous short-stories with settings ranging from Milan to Palermo by way of Rome and even Guadeloupe. These brilliant tales do not feature psychopathic cannibals or obscure power-mad sects but ordinary criminals: a drug-addled cosmetic surgeon, inept blackmailers and various other low-lifes lusting after easy money.
Authors include best selling Italian crime writers such as Niccolo Ammaniti ( I'm not Scared and Steal You Away), Andrea Camilleri (Inspector Montalban series), Carlo Lucarelli (Carte Blanche), Massimo Carlotto (Death's Dark Abyss), Marcello Fois (The Advocate) and others.
De Cataldo, the editor of the anthology, is a judge in Rome where he has been living since 1973. He is the author of Romanzo Criminale, which was made into the film of the same name directed by Michele Placido. De Cataldo is also an essayist, journalist and playwright.
As De Cataldo, an appellate judge, points out in his pithy preface, corruption is a theme shared by all nine stories in this first U.S. anthology of Italian noir. The dark farce, ""You Are My Treasure Chest"" by Niccolo Ammaniti and Antonio Manzini, recounts the misadventures of drug-addicted plastic surgeon Paolo Bocchi, who finds a creative solution to hiding a stache of cocaine when he must perform breast-enhancement surgery on one of Italy's leading soap opera actresses. Carlo Lucarelli's lean ""The Third Shot,"" the volume's most impressive entry, centers on an officer-involved shooting in Bologna. Expectations are confounded when the threat from organized crime in Massimo Carlotto's ""Death of an Informer"" stems not from the Mafia but from Chinese gangs who have taken over the protection rackets in small towns the Italian mobsters have abandoned. As Carlotto's story suggests, the increasing role of immigrants in Italian society has become a major theme in Italian noir. The high quality and variety of these tales will leave many readers hoping for another such selection soon. .
"Serious crimes by cruel men...' New York Times
''An insider's sense of authenticity...'' Sunday Times