Padua, Italy is the setting for Massimo Carlotto's intense, rapid-fire novella where lines of dialogue snap, crackle and pop like hits of cocaine.
"I believe there is an unbridgeable gap between reality and the way justice is administered." The author's words of hard won wisdom, having himself spent six years in prison for a murder he did not commit, a crime that counts as one of the most controversial legal cases in modern-day Italian history.
Campagna's Trail is a fierce, violent tale containing many such gaps, a tale where we follow Inspector Giulio Campagna in his role as part of the Italian police's flying squad responsible for clamping down on drugs in the city of Padua.
"Giulio Campagna was not a tormented soul, or even a particularly worried one. He tried to maintain his dignity in a myriad of complicated situations, without kidding himself that things were ever going to get better." As we quickly learn, Campagna lands in a very complicated situation - his boss, the head of the flying squad, puts him on a highly dangerous cocaine case he must crack (no pun intended) solo. His mission: to hit the trail and accomplish what the boss wants, thus the title of Massimo's novel compressed in a mere 70 pages. As to exactly who and what the inspector encounters following this high-risk white powder path, here's several markers:
Warm-up - Campagna works with young, attractive Annina Montisci (with her hairdo and wire-rimmed glasses anyone would think she was just another university student not an undercover cop) to arrest an Iranian for international drug trafficking. Turns out, the agreeable gent is only carrying opium. He tells Annina, "Mixed with hashish it's a genuine delight for mind and spirit, beautiful lady." No matter in certain other parts of the world these ingredients to bring delight to mind and spirit are entirely legal - this is Italy, so off to years in jail he goes, a prime example of the gap between reality and justice, the arbitrariness of laws.
Payback - Giorgio Lopez, head of the flying squad, shows Campagna a photo of a handsome man in uniform - a great guy Lopez knew back in training, a man with a wife and two small children. Most unfortunately, he was killed by Tinko Boyev, Bulgarian mafioso who deals in coke at 2,000 kelos per cargo. Since Campagna hasn't always played by regular cop rules, including protecting his boyhood buddy who nowadays is a dealer in coke, Lopez proclaims now is the time to set things straight. Campagna knows going up against a powerful international drug gang solo isn't going to be easy but that's the way it is.
Lifelong Bond - Everybody loves Roberto "Roby" Pizzo, Campagna's childhood chum since what's there not to love - Roby spent years doing manual labor and was a hard working trade unionist but when his big company imported foreigners wiling to work for next to nothing, all the natives from Padua, including Roby, were fired. Finding himself at the bottom of the social barrel, Roby turned to dealing drugs - in his own mind, all for a good cause: men and women doing shit jobs for shit pay could at least get some comfort, all paid for by their hard-earned cash. Also, Roby is taking away some of the money from foreign drug dealers.
International Police Training - One intriguing and somewhat humorous part of Campagna's interrogating one of his suspects: "This was the system used by police in America; Campagna had learned it from watching NYPD Blue. Suspects were always asked to write out their statements; once they had been set down in their own handwriting, they were harder to deny." Nothing like a seasoned inspector from Italy picking up tricks of the trade from American law enforcement via the boob tube.
TV Redux - Our inspector does enjoy cops and robbers TV shows: "He immediately fell asleep in front of the television, during a programme about the kidnapping of a surveyor linked to a dodgy politician. The thugs involved were so pitiful that they made Roby Pizzo and his gang look great." I do appreciate Massimo Carlotto injecting elements of humor into a serious story filled with life and death consequences rippling through society.
International Thriller - Make no mistake, this is a tale touching on riveting issues: explosive social and economic conditions pressing men and women into a life of drugs and crime, the ever present human craving for intense, enjoyable experience, questions of legality and weighing the odds, loyalty and betrayal, corruption, greed and power.
On a personal note, I found Campagna's Trail to be a most impressive work of dark crime fiction. I plan to read more of the author's novels, beginning with The Fugitive, a fictionalized account of his years spend on the run taking him to Mexico. Also, The Colombian Mule, another tale of the international world of crime and hard drugs.
For English Readers, Campagna's Trail is one of three novellas included in Cocaine, published by Maclehose Press. The other two novellas are The Speed of the Angel by Gianrico Carofiglio and The White Powder Dance by Giancarlo de Cataldo.
Massimo Carlotto, born 1956
"His best customers were bricklayers, roofers, plumbers and electricians. The work was hard, with the tight rhythms of piecework. Coke was the ideal pick-me-up.
Campagna studied the men's faces, marked by exhaustion and an awareness that nothing in their lives was ever going to change. It was true that everyone snorted coke, rich or poor, graduates and illiterates alike. It was their expectations that made the difference. - Massimo Carlotto, Campagna's Trail
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