How Swede it isn't: Is Italian crime fiction the next wave?

I gave up speculating about next big things a few years after the Beatles broke up, but it occurs to me that the next cosa grande in crime writing could be Italy.

Three of the six novels shortlisted for the CWA's International Dagger Award this year are Italian: The Dark Valley by Valerio Varesi (translated by Joseph Farrell), The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri (tr. Stephen Sartarelli), and I Will Have Vengeance by Maurizio de Giovanni (tr. Anne Milano Appel), the last of which is also up for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. Furthermore, the good folks at Hersilia Press, who specialize in Italian crime fiction and who publish I Will Have Vengeance, are also bringing out an English translation of A Private Venus, a 1966 novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco, the father of Italian noir. That's good news.

The De Giovanni, titled Il senso del dolore in its original version and set in Italy's Fascist period, will make an interesting comparison with some of my favorite historical crime fiction: Carlo Lucarelli's De Luca trilogy of Carte Blanche, That Damned Season and Via delle Oche. (Read the first chapter of I Will Have Vengeance at the publisher's Web site.)

Hersilia, by the way, was the wife of Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. Hersilia are also long-spinnered bark spiders. What this says about ancient Roman women, I don't know.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Crime-fiction team-ups

This news makes me wish I could read Italian better: Carlo Lucarelli (left) and Andrea Camilleri (right) have teamed up on a novel, Acqua in Bocca, that pairs Camilleri's Salvo Montalbano and Lucarelli's Grazia Negro.

Here's a clip of the two authors talking about their "romanzo a quattro mani" — their novel for four hands. The video is worth a look even if you don't understand Italian. But what is Camilleri doing puffing away on that cigarette? Doesn't he know smoking will shorten his life?

***

I always liked comic-book superhero team-ups when I was a kid, but such pairings are rarer in crime fiction. Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice teamed their protagonists in the entertaining collection People vs. Withers and Malone in 1963, and Donald Westlake and Joe Gores shared chapters, in which both authors' cast of characters appear together in action included in novels by both writers.

What crime-fiction crossovers have you enjoyed? If you can't think of one, create your own. Which crime characters from different authors could work well together?

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

A fourth volume in Carlo Lucarelli's De Luca trilogy

A recent comment on this blog brings the welcome news that Carlo Lucarelli is at work on a fourth novel about Commissario De Luca. The news comes from an interview with Lucarelli in the the Italian online magazine Milanonera ("Il primo Web press in noir"), which is worth a look even if you don't read Italian.

Lucarelli does not say when the book will appear, nor does he give a title. The first three De Luca novels, Carte Blanche, The Damned Season and Via delle Oche, appeared in 1990, 1991 and 1996. English translations from Europa Editions appeared in 2006, 2007 and this year.

The books evoke with great economy and tension the grimness and paranoia of late- and post-Fascist Italy. They work as lively history lessons and superb thriller and crime stories. (Read my review of Via delle Oche here.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Carlo Lucarelli
Italian crime fiction
historical mysteries

"Via delle Oche": Carlo Lucarelli's historical noir reviewed in Words Without Borders

My review of Via delle Oche, third volume in Carlo Lucarelli's stripped-down, tensed-up De Luca trilogy, appears in Words Without Borders: The Online Magazine for International Literature.

A heads-up: I liked the book a lot.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Technorati tags:
Carlo Lucarelli
Italian crime fiction
historical mysteries

The most influential crime writer? — Jean-Patrick Manchette plus a question for readers

A year ago, I asked readers to name their choices for the most influential crime writer ever. Here's another name for the list: Jean-Patrick Manchette.

Manchette reinvigorated noir, inventing what French critics call the néo-polar, or neo-whodunnit, and if all that neo stuff makes you roll your eyes, stop and think for a minute: How many of the old-time hard-boiled writers make your blood run cold the way they presumably did for readers in the 1930s and 1940s? How mean, in other words, are Raymond Chandler's mean streets today?

Certainly Manchette's time, an age that saw assassinations, cover-ups at the highest levels, and revelations of the violence that attended colonialism and its end, could no longer be shocked by small-town or even big-city corruption of the Hammett and Chandler kind. Manchette restored that ability to shock, with tales of what power can do to those it finds convenient to crush. And he did it while remaining true to the roots of pulp. Heck, the guy even loved American movies and played the saxophone. How much more genuine can you get?

I was reminded of Manchette twice recently. The first reminder came in Duane Swierczynski's novel The Blonde, which names a character, or rather a part of a character, after Manchette. I suspect Swierczynski would not call himself a political writer. Still, he was attracted by Manchette's non-stop, man-on-the-run plots, and something of their energy infuses Swierczynski's own work.

The second arrived this week in the form of a tribute on the encyclopedic Ile noire blog on the thirteenth anniversary of Manchette's death. The article, in French, discusses the rage Manchette felt at political repression in the time after the political and social upheavals of 1968. The author himself coined the term néo-polar, according to one critic quoted in the article, not because he wanted to introduce a new school of French crime writing, but to emphasize that he was parodying the traditions of the genre's classics. The Ile noire article links to a Manchette Web site, also in French, that is as comprehensive as any I have seen. For a beautifully written appreciation, try this piece by James Sallis. (It's in English.)

As for Manchette's influence, how about Carlo Lucarelli's De Luca novels? And here's an open-ended set of questions for you, readers: If you've read Manchette, what's your take on him? If not, let's revive the old question of who the most influential crime writer is, only with a twist: Who is the most influential crime writer since the end of World War II? And why?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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French crime fiction
Jean-Patrick Manchette

Bad girl, bad boy and a question for readers

Why do authors turn to historical crime fiction? I imagine writers so bursting with erudition and good stories that they need outlets livelier than journals, dissertations and monographs. I like to think such is the case with Peter Tremayne and Lindsey Davis. Both are scholars, the first of early medieval Ireland, the second of early imperial Rome, and scholarship marks their series about Sister Fidelma and Marcus Didius Falco. (The staff at Fishbourne Roman Villa near Chichester in England, a moving and spectacular monument of the Roman world and a scene of one of Davis' books, praises her work.)

Carlo Lucarelli was a scholar, too, working on a thesis with the mid-1960s-Dylanesque title "The Vision of the Police in the Memories of Anti-Fascists" when he "ran across a strange character who in a certain sense changed my life." He abandoned his thesis, and that character became the inspiration for Commissario De Luca, protagonist of Carte Blanche, That Damned Season and Via delle Oche. It's easy to read the dizzying administrative mess of De Luca's Fascist and post-Fascist Italy as commentary on a more current version of the country. And then there is David Liss' stunning The Coffee Trader, the most thorough and convincing work of historical illusionism I have ever read.

But erudition, social criticism and coffee are not the only inspirations for historical fiction. Another is good, old-fashioned dirty fun. I received a note on an unrelated topic this week from Mary Reed, who, with Eric Mayer, writes a series about John the Eunuch, a high official in the Byzantine court of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora. Why, I asked her, had she and Mayer chosen this particular period?

"What happened," she replied, "was Mike Ashley asked us to write a short story for one of his early Mammoth Book historical-mystery collections, but the snag was we had only about three weeks to deadline. As it happened, Eric was interested in the Byzantine period and had a number of books about it, so we thought ... hmmm ... research material to hand, and nobody is working in that field (now, of course, it is beginning to get rather crowded in there), lots of colour and scandal, and so we wrote the first story about John."

Readers, I can tell you that if you ever have a deadline to meet and a desperate need for dirt, you cannot do better than sixth-century Constantinople. Procopius, the great early-Byzantine historian and scandal-monger, inspired several of Reed and Mayer's books, and it's no wonder. The avowed subject of his Secret History is "the folly of Belisarius, and the depravity of Justinian and Theodora."

I'll leave you to read the salacious details yourself. Suffice it for now to note that Reed and Mayer have had "a lot of fun with reference to the business with the geese and Theodora."

And now, readers, it's your turn. What makes a historical period ripe for treatment in crime-fiction form?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Technorati tags:
historical crime fiction
historical mysteries
Mary Reed
Eric Mayer
Peter Tremayne
Carlo Lucarelli
David Liss

Historical crime fiction: Does the crime fit the time?

I pondered the question of what makes good historical crime fiction recently after reading Ariana Franklin’s Mistress of the Art of Death, as I had from time to time previously with respect to other books.

I realize now why the book worked: the crime fit the time. It’s 1170, and the Jews of Cambridge have been accused of murdering children. England’s King Henry II, for whom the economically active Jews are a source of tax revenue, wishes to clear them, if possible, and he sends for the book’s title character, who sets the investigation in motion.

Humans have likely been killing one another forever, so an author who sets a story in a time other than his or her own has one big question to answer: Why one period over any other? Why set a story in 1170 rather than 1270, 1370 or 1970? Franklin set hers at the time and in the place where the slander arose that Jews killed Christian children for ritual purposes. Henry’s motive for wanting to solve the case is not just plausible, but plausible historically.

I can think of one other author whose historical crime fiction similarly seems perfectly suited to its period: Carlo Lucarelli. What about you, readers? What historical crime fiction is not just a good read, but could not have been set in any other period?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Ariana Franklin
Carlo Lucarelli
medieval mysteries
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Sweet news from Bitter Lemon Press

The good folks at Bitter Lemon keep making interesting tweaks and additions to their offerings. First they moved into English-language crime fiction, adding titles by D.B. Reid and Australia's Garry Disher to their fine list of translated crime.

Now, they plan a book of short stories from Italian crime writers, the company's first move into short fiction (hat tip to Crime Scraps). Crimini, with publication dates of January 2008 in the U.K. and April 2008 in the U.S., will include stories by Massimo Carlotto, Niccolo Ammaniti, Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli, Marcello Fois and others. I like the catalogue's description of the book's nine stories as often darkly humorous.

But the best news from Bitter Lemon is the upcoming publication (February 2008, U.K. / January 2009 U.S.) of Friedrich Glauser's The Spoke. Glauser was one of the outstanding crime writers ever: low-key, compassionate, witty, deadpan. Getting his work translated into English is the best thing Bitter Lemon has done.

One question: For some reason, I'd thought that Glauser wrote six novels about Sgt. Studer, and I could have sworn that I heard this from Bitter Lemon. But the company says The Spoke is the fifth and last of the Studer books. I shall investigate!

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Friedrich Glauser
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Andrea Camilleri
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Marcello Fois
Italian crime fiction

Why historical crime fiction should go heavy on the history — or not

I've picked up a number of historical crime novels but finished few, probably because of the clashing demands of genre and setting. If the plot is compelling, the togas, horse-drawn carriages and imperial messengers become a distraction. If the historical period is compelling, I think, "What's all this stuff about a murder?" I'd rather go the source and read Gibbon or Tacitus.

When I do enjoy a historical crime novel, I ask myself what the author did to hold my attention. Carlo Lucarelli strips his De Luca novels of almost all historical detail. Instead, he lets the paranoia and confusion of story convey the atmosphere during the decline and fall of Fascist Italy.

Peter Tremayne, on the other hand, stuffs his Sister Fidelma novels so full of detail about the sights, sounds, laws and languages of seventh-century Ireland that the sheer joy of observing and learning becomes part of the fun. He talked about his technique a few years back in an interview in Solander: The Magazine of the Historical Novel Society:

"Accuracy is the first principle. My characters can do nothing that is not consistent with the time, place and social system. I would say that I have probably done the bulk of general background research during the many decades I have been writing of this period of Irish history. When it comes to the setting of each individual novel, I will only write about places I know – places that I’ve been to. Spirit of place is very important to me. On the technical side, I have to ensure that any law that Fidelma quotes can actually be verified in the ancient law texts. This is something that happens as I go along. An argument on law might arise in the story … then I have to start checking my library to see what the interpretations are."

I've read the first Sister Fidelma novel, Absolution by Murder, and I'll read at least one more before offering further thoughts on the subject. For now, it's time once again to play A question for readers.

Today's questions: Carlo Lucarelli is a stripped-down minimalist when it comes to historical detail. Peter Tremayne is a beefed-up maximalist. Which approach do you prefer in historical crime fiction? Why? And what influences your choice?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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historical mysteries
Peter Tremayne
Sister Fidelma
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Carlo Lucarelli

Carlo Lucarelli, "Carte Blanche"

If more historical crime fiction were like Carlo Lucarelli's De Luca trilogy (Carte Blanche, That Damned Season and Via delle Oche, the last of which is to be published in English translation next year), I might learn to like historical crime fiction.

What makes Lucarelli's brand different? For one thing, the De Luca books are compact and almost devoid of picturesque detail. Instead, Lucarelli gets at the heart of the scary and chaotic place that was late-Fascist Italy directly, and far more effectively, through brief, violent bursts of action, and through the thoughts and words and deeds of one man: De Luca.

That hard-working police officer has transferred from the Fascist political police to the regular force, but his past stays with him and is essential to his investigations. De Luca's pleas that he hates the politics, that he is just a policeman doing his job, are a sad, almost pathetic refrain throughout Carte Blanche.

More later, perhaps.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

Technorati tags:
Carlo Lucarelli
Italian crime fiction
historical mysteries

Carlo Lucarelli, "The Damned Season"

This is the second of Carlo Lucarelli's three novels about Commissario De Luca, a police officer by talent, inclination and temperament, if not always by title, in post-World War II Italy. The story is inextricably tied to its setting, and the book's most fascinating feature may be the preface, in which Lucarelli explains its genesis.

Lucarelli was working on a thesis whose title sounds like a mid-1960s Bob Dylan song, "The Vision of the Police in the Memories of Anti-Fascists," when he "ran across a strange character who in a certain sense changed my life."

The strange character had spent forty years in the Italian police, a tenure that brought him from the fascist political police, who tailed first anti-fascists, then those who were fascists but happened not to like Mussolini. During the war, he spied on and arrested anti-fascist saboteurs again before switching sides when part of Italy fell under the control of partisans who fought alongside the Allies (and the Allies have a huge presence in The Damned Season). This meant arresting fascists, at least until Italy formed a regular government, and he became a part of the republic's police, spying on partisans who had been his colleagues and were now considered subversives.

"There is, above all," Lucarelli writes, "enormous moral and political confusion that mixes together the desperation of those who know they are losing, the opportunism of those ready to change sides, the guilelessness of those who haven't understood anything, and even the desire for revenge in those are about to arrive." There were all these plus, in Milan, at least sixteen police forces, from the regular Questura to the Gestapo, "each doing as they pleased and sometimes arresting one another."

Into this confusion steps De Luca, sitting by a land mine as The Damned Season opens, deprived seemingly of his job, and soon thereafter of his false identity papers by a rough-edged officer with partisan sympathies and almost no police experience. On his way to God knows what fate with the officer, De Luca is dragged into helping the officer investigate a murder, motive robbery — or is it that simple?

The solution to the crime is slight, even off-hand, as one reviewer aptly wrote. But the tangled motives, sympathies, animosities and, above, all, relations of power seem an embryonic version of an Italy that will seem familiar from the fiction of Leonardo Sciascia or Michael Dibdin — or from real life.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Carlo Lucarelli
Italian crime fiction
historical mysteries