This is Michele Giuttari’s first novel in his series of crime novels set in Florence. The author is actually a previous head of the Squadra Mobile in Florence – an interesting fact I only picked up on during the ‘author’s note’ at the end of the book – but I should have guessed. The details about the police force; its organisation, temperament, and general atmosphere all ring very true, as do the comments about the city in general. While sounding slightly romanticised (although in a different way to the usual tourist spiel: Giuttari describes Florence as a picture-postcard city which is actually as modern as any other in its vices), it reads much better than the idealised picture a non-resident might paint.
The plot was not one which I personally enjoyed, centred around a series of brutal murders in the city. The additional personal threat to the main character was (albeit slightly clichéd) necessary to hold the reader’s interest, both in terms of who the murderer was, and what their motive was, but also in terms of discovering more about the main character, Michele Ferrara.
The writing style was what I struggled the most with, and this may simply be down to the fact that I don’t read many crime novels. The point of view in many chapters switched abruptly from person to person, often with no real reason. I also found certain reiterations tedious and the factual delivery of some sentences quite bland. Again, this may be due to the genre, and possibly due to something having been lost in translation.
For me, the overall success of the novel was the authenticity with which the author writes about a subject he clearly knows a lot about. The subject is not hackneyed, and I think he deserves praise – after all, how many policemen would dare to confront a Mafia network during his work, and then write novels about it afterwards?
L SILVERLOCK 