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Summary
Summary
The "razor-sharp political thriller set during the dying days of Berlusconi's regime" that inspired the Netflix original series ( New Statesman ).
This "fast-moving crime thriller" takes a deep dive into a politically and financially corrupt contemporary Italy, where crime families, corrupt politicians, and new rabid criminal elements battle each other for control of a glittering prize--a multibillion-dollar development twenty miles from the Italian capital ( Publishers Weekly ).
During the final days of Silvio Berlusconi's reign, a massive development proposal that will turn the depressed coastal settlement of Ostia into a gambling paradise, a Las Vegas on the Mediterranean, is winding its way through the Italian legislature thanks to the sponsorship of politicians in the pay of crime syndicates. It's business as usual in the Italian capital. Or so it seems. A vicious gang of local thugs loyal to nobody but themselves is insisting on a bigger cut than agreed upon. The Mafia and their political puppets aren't going to back down without a fight. And one policeman, pushed to the sidelines, may not be able to stop an all-out war . . .With a plot that "thrills from the get-go," Suburra is a compelling work of international crime fiction and the inspiration for the popular Netflix series of the same name ( New Statesman ).
"A novel of Rome, meaning that the city itself, in all its history, glory, and despair, is skillfully sewn into the fiber of the tale. . . . Evokes Mario Puzo's famous trilogy and other classics of the genre."-- Kirkus Reviews
Author Notes
Carlo Bonini is an Italian writer and journalist for the Italian nationaldaily, La Repubblica . Giancarlo De Cataldo is a bestselling novelist, essayist, the author of numerous TV screenplays, and a judge on the circuit court of Rome. Antony Shugaar 'stranslations for Europa Editions include seven books in the Commissario Ricciardi series by Maurizio de Giovanni, For Grace Received by Valeria Parrella, Fabio Bartolomei's Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles, and Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1993, 18-year-old Marco Malatesta, the hero of this fast-moving crime thriller from journalist Bonini and novelist De Cataldo (The Father and the Foreigner), was a "hoodlum from Talenti with plenty of heart." He followed a gang leader known as Samurai, who asserted that certain acts considered criminal by the bourgeoisie such as theft and assault were appropriate responses to an inadequate justice system. But after realizing that Samurai was merely interested in consolidating his own power, Marco broke with him and joined the police. With his past a closely held secret, Marco rose through the ranks and eventually became a lieutenant colonel. In the present, an outbreak of violence in Rome appears to be the initial stage of a full-fledged Mafia gang war that Samurai might be involved in. When a massacre confirms Marco's suspicion that Samurai is involved, the policeman is sidelined, forcing him to be creative in his pursuit of justice. The authors effectively use genre formulas to provide an unflinching look at real-life widespread corruption in Italy. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
The late Henning Mankell once said that the book he most wished he'd written was Peter Hoeg's Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow -- with the caveat that he would have reworked the unsatisfactory science-fictional ending (his reservations about that book's coda were widely shared). Had the creator of Kurt Wallander lived to read Hoeg's new book, The Susan Effect (Harvill Secker, [pound]16.99, translated by Martin Aitken), there is little doubt that he would have once again wanted to rejig the unlikely climax. Hoeg's signature character, Smilla Jaspersen, had an almost supernatural intuitive ability involving weather that aided her deductive skills, and the author echoes that here by giving the eponymous Susan a similar gift: the ability to compel interlocutors to tell the truth. But Susan -- who also possesses an Olympian sexual appetite -- is responsible for putting her equally odd family in danger when she is called on to investigate a clandestine thinktank called "The Future Committee", and finds the stakes are nothing short of apocalyptic. Interestingly, Miss Smilla was marketed as literary fiction (about, among other things, Denmark's post-colonial legacy), with its crime fiction trappings seen as incidental, in the same way that the axe murders in Crime and Punishment are less important than the study of guilt and redemption. But Hoeg is evidently no snob, and now seems happy to move decisively into the less "respectable" field of crime. Judged in genre terms, this is an artfully written, exuberant thriller with a mercurial and interesting central character. It will please many -- or at least those in whom the ending doesn't inspire a Mankell-like desire to do a rewrite. From Denmark to Italy -- but none of Hoeg's ornate use of language is to be found in the caustic and blunt Suburra by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo (Europa Editions, [pound]13.99). This massive crime epic, already adapted for TV, is translated by Antony Shugaar in unfinessed fashion ("Samurai ripped them into shreds. His friend never even fired a shot. Then they shovelled the remains into trash bags and dropped them into the Tiber"). Italy, with its endemic political and religious corruption, is fertile territory for crime fiction. Choosing the Berlusconi era as it enters its long-overdue final phase, Bonini and De Cataldo (a magistrate and journalist respectively) name their narrative for Suburra, a rundown and lawless area of Rome. The financial crisis of 2008 has allowed the Mafia to gain even greater influence over the police, their own criminal foot soldiers, far-right extremists and a deeply compromised Catholic Church plagued by sex scandals. There's no nuance here, but Suburra is a reminder that crime fiction can say as much about a society as other genres. More European criminality in the distinctly off-kilter The Accordionist (Harvill Secker, [pound]16.99) -- but then, the eccentric literary world of French writer Fred Vargas (here translated by Sian Reynolds) has quirkiness as a given. The eponymous musician is the principal suspect when two Parisian women are killed. He flees to sanctuary with Marthe, a former sex worker and the nearest thing he has known to a mother; Marthe then inveigles former investigator Kehlweiler into taking an unorthodox approach to unmasking the real murderer. The book is as beguiling as previous entries in the Three Evangelists series, with the pleasure here coming from the comic interplay between the unconventional sleuths. And (as this is Vargas) a pet toad has a significant role. After so many tired police procedurals, who can produce something different in the genre? Sarah Ward, as A Patient Fury (Faber, [pound]12.99) demonstrably proves. Like Ann Cleeves, Ward infuses a degree of Scandinavian chilliness into her resolutely English scenarios, and has a gift for the macabre image -- such as a burning body, strung from a ceiling, which turns slowly to face those who have discovered it. Diminutive DC Connie Childs finds that the key to three murders in a Derbyshire house may lie with an as-yet-undiscovered fourth body. Readers may initially wonder why The Frozen Woman by Jon Michelet (No Exit, [pound]12.99) bagged a big Norwegian prize. But those who persist will realise that the longueurs are intentional, and patience pays dividends. Winter holds Norway in its grip. Left-leaning lawyer Vilhem Thygesen finds a frozen corpse in his garden -- that of a young woman, the victim of a bloody knife attack. The police dismiss the murder as drug related, but then a member of a biker gang once represented by Thygesen dies in what appear to be accidental circumstances. The common denominator in both cases -- the bolshie, 60ish lawyer -- is suddenly of interest to the police, who have long nurtured a dislike of him. It doesn't hurt that the translation is by the reigning monarch of the art, Don Bartlett. - Barry Forshaw.
Kirkus Review
Rome is a hotbed of political corruption, violence, and scheming at the end of Silvio Berlusconi's reign as prime minister in this modern Mafia novel.Some of the most powerful Mafia families in town, led by a shadowy figurehead known as Samurai, are taking advantage of the unrest to hatch a multibillion dollar plan to build a luxury waterfront development that will also give them full control of the nearby port of Ostia. But Mafia egos are notoriously delicate, and, inevitably, murder will undercut the spirit of "family" cooperation. The novel begins with a politician covering up the death of a prostitute he's just had sex with, which leads a relatively unimportant gang member to overestimate his power. When he ends up murdered, the response from his family is swift. In the middle of this vicious quagmire stands one smart and noble Carabinieri, Marco Malatesta, himself a product of the violent streets. With help from the magistrate Michelangelo de Candia and a firebrand leftist named Alice Savelli, Marco not only uncovers the complex plans and the murders at their heart, but also sets his sights on Samurai, determined to catch the puppet master once and for all. The novel is set in a very specific time, and it is a novel of Rome, meaning that the city itself, in all its history, glory, and despair, is skillfully sewn into the fiber of the tale. At the same time, there is something old-fashioned about the narrative, because it clearly evokes Mario Puzo's famous trilogy and other classics of the genre. It can be hard to keep track of all the characters, but loose ends are admirably tied up in the end. While the complex plot intrigues, there is so much violence, so much dirty scheming, that even when the "good guys" win, it's hard to muster up much hope for Rome itself. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In this gritty, beautifully translated crime novel, Bonini, a journalist for La Repubblica, and de Cataldo, a novelist, screenwriter, and circuit court judge in Rome, delve into the complex world of Italian political corruption. As promoters of a public works project, a cabal of ruthless profiteers-Neapolitan Camorristi, hoods of the Calabrian `Ndrangheta, a Roma tribe, local mafiosi, whore-mongering politicians, and a monsignor of the Catholic Church-consort and compete to bring a Las Vegas-style casino strip to the beaches of Rome's port district, Ostia. When gang war breaks out, a stalwart Carabiniere officer, Marco Malatesta, butts heads with not only a former and now deadly childhood adversary who goes by the moniker Samurai but the bent bureaucracy of his own service and the often lax Italian judiciary. As the dead pile up, no one escapes unscathed, not even Malatesta. Italophiles will love the violent scaramuccia (skirmishes) that carry the many unforgettable characters through the streets of Rome. VERDICT The basis of an award-winning 2015 Italian film, this contemporary noir will appeal to readers intrigued by gangland crime, big-city corruption, and how Italy actually "works."-Ron Terpening, formerly of Univ. of Arizona, Tucson © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
