If crime noir is coffee, than Carlo Lucarelli is espresso.
Other writers take 250 pages to say what Carlo Lucarelli compresses into a mere 100.
As pictured above, The Damned Season is Book Two in his Trilogy featuring tall, skinny De Luca, the most brilliant detective in all of Italy.
The tale is set in a small town some miles from the northern Italian city of Bologna. We’re in 1945, the most turbulent year in Italy’s modern history, Mussolini’s final year, a time when power swings back and forth and up and down like a yo-yo between fascists, communists, national paramilitary police, partisans and various other police. Who's ultimately in charge depends on the city or town in which one happens to be residing. And even that can change from day to day.
The opening chapter finds De Luca sitting on a rock by the side of a dirt road, his trench coat folded over his knees, contemplating ants climbing around a land mine. A young man approaches, one Brigadier Leonardi of the Partisan Police, and asks to see his papers. De Luca hands this twenty-something officer his ID and says his name is Morandi Giovanni. Leonardi looks closely; he recognizes Commissario De Luca back from his police training course but plays along, telling him from now on he will simply call him Engineer.
Leonardi plays this game for good reason – the young Brigadier wants to create something of a name for himself by solving a recent case involving the brutal torture and murder of an entire family living out in a farmhouse. But there’s a problem - he’s never had sufficient training, he needs help, help from someone with more experience, more specifically, he needs help from a detective of the caliber of De Luca.
In his turn, De Luca doesn't have much choice - after all, Leonardi tells him he saw his name on the National Liberation Committee's wanted list. As readers we can infer this is precisely the reason why De Luca was out walking in the hinterlands in the first place.
Thus we have the framework for this Carlo Lucarelli novel: Brigadier Leonardi and Commissario De Luca form an uneasy partnership to crack the case. If they succeed, the young officer makes the headlines in the local paper and he's on his way to a glorious career as a detective. As for De Luca, at least he gets to live to see another day.
As in all three books of the author’s Trilogy, we follow De Luca at every turn. The thirty-five year old master detective is a study in contrast: he has a weak stomach, his hands shake, he shivers, he’s a bundle of nerves and has trouble sleeping at night. But his mind is razor sharp. His parents wanted him to be a lawyer; however, during his university years, he took the entrance exam for the police academy and became the youngest inspector in the history of the Italian police force.
We watch De Luca and Leonardi in action, Leonardi headstrong and bumbling, De Luca picking up clues at every step. Rather than divulging too much of the plot, let me share a few choice snapshots:
De Luca insists they return to the farmhouse with the proper equipment, things like a spade and a crowbar. Conducting their exploration, they discover a small bundle of fabric tied in a knot shoved up the chimney. And what’s inside? A brooch with an enormous stone at its center and a gold clasp. Eureka! So this was the reason for the torture and murder. The plot quickly thickens.
The discovery of the brooch lead the pair to the home of a Count, according to Leonardi, a rich, influential man who was a spy for the Germans and a pervert, someone who offered hospitality to the SS and has now disappeared. Gone to America. However, when De Luca interrogates the Count’s old maid, it appears a number of influential townspeople are involved. Leonardi knows their investigation has quickly led them into hot water, so hot that pressing forward might cost them their lives.
Added to the mix is the presence of beautiful Francesca at the inn where De Luca is staying. If our star detective didn’t have enough troubles, Francesca enters his room where he is resting, bathed in sweat and fatigued. The luscious lovely quickly takes an active, aggressive role. The next morning, Leonardi informs De Luca that their lovemaking is now the talk of the town. The Brigadier adds: “I don’t know about where you come from, Engineer, but here in our neck of the woods, in Romagna, fooling around with someone else’s woman has always been a good way to earn yourself an ounce of lead.”
Again, this Carlo Lucarelli is espresso. And not only will a reader be treated to a detective crime thriller written at a pace that's prestissimo but this is a tale of Italy caught in a power struggle - Black Brigades, Polizia di Stato, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza, the military all vie for the final word. De Luca is simply attempting to do his job as a police officer but, no matter which way he turns, he's caught in a vice grip with one organization or the other after his skin. To find out the fate of the Commissario in this small town, I recommend picking up a copy of A Damned Season. An exciting read, for sure.
Italian crime author Carlo Lucarelli, born 1960
"De Luca looked up, brusquely, and only then realized that right in front of him, at the other end of the table, sat the same big man with the thin face and the aquiline nose that he had seen that morning. He was staring at De Luca, the same stare that he had seen reflected in the rearview mirror of the jeep, the same black eyes, insistent and cruel, like Tedeschina's. De Luca shivered." - Carlo Lucarelli, The Damned Season
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