No good deed goes unpunished
Mar. 13th, 2024 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Via delle Oche, by Carlo Lucarelli
This is the final part of the De Luca trilogy. It is 1948; there is no explanation of how we got here from The Damned Season, but we can infer from De Luca's position in the vice squad that his rehabilitation has been limited by those now in power. Inconveniently for those in authority, a death occurs in a brothel in Bologna and therefore De Luca has some legitimate interest. The official line is suicide, but De Luca highlights the farcical shortcomings (literally) of this theory. It is election season, and the police are on edge (and potentially in the pockets of one or other political grouping). Deaths pile up and De Luca stubbornly persists, despite attempts to reassign him elsewhere. The conclusion is ambivalent: De Luca has a solution to the case, but whether justice will be served in any form, or whether an alternative prescription will be found, more to others' liking, is uncertain.
This is the final part of the De Luca trilogy. It is 1948; there is no explanation of how we got here from The Damned Season, but we can infer from De Luca's position in the vice squad that his rehabilitation has been limited by those now in power. Inconveniently for those in authority, a death occurs in a brothel in Bologna and therefore De Luca has some legitimate interest. The official line is suicide, but De Luca highlights the farcical shortcomings (literally) of this theory. It is election season, and the police are on edge (and potentially in the pockets of one or other political grouping). Deaths pile up and De Luca stubbornly persists, despite attempts to reassign him elsewhere. The conclusion is ambivalent: De Luca has a solution to the case, but whether justice will be served in any form, or whether an alternative prescription will be found, more to others' liking, is uncertain.