A Walk in the Dark (23 page)
Read A Walk in the Dark Online
Authors: Gianrico Carofiglio
Gianrico Carofiglio
Counsel for the defence Guido Guerrieri is asked to handle the appeal of Fabio Paolicelli, who has been sentenced to sixteen years for drug smuggling. The odds are stacked against the accused: not only the fact that he initially confessed to the crime, but also his past as a neo-Fascist thug. It is only the intervention of Paolicelli’s beautiful half-Japanese wife that finally overcomes Guerrieri’s reluctance.
Reasonable Doubts
, Carofiglio’s third novel featuring Guerrieri, follows on from the critical and commercial success of
Involuntary Witness
and
A Walk in the Dark
.
, Carofiglio’s third novel featuring Guerrieri, follows on from the critical and commercial success of
Involuntary Witness
and
A Walk in the Dark
.
PRAISE FOR
REASONABLE DOUBTS
REASONABLE DOUBTS
“The role of lawyer Guido Guerrieri is to take on impossible cases that have little chance of success. The lawyer accepts this case only because he’s fallen in lust with the prisoner’s wife; his efforts to prove his client’s innocence bring him into dangerous conflict with Mafia interests.
Everything a legal thriller should be.”
The Times
The Times
This novel is hard-boiled and sun-dried in equal parts. Guerrieri stumbles into a case involving old enmities, a femme fatale and a murky conspiracy. But where Philip Marlowe would be knocking back bourbon and listening to the snap of fist on jaw, Guerrieri prefers Sicilian wine and Leonard Cohen… The local colour is complemented by snappy legal procedural writing which sends the reader tumbling through the clockwork of a tightly wound plot.”
The Financial Times
The Financial Times
“Carofiglio, until recently an anti-Mafia prosecutor in southern Italy, is particularly well placed to write legal thrillers, and he does so with considerable brio, humour and skill.”
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mail
INVOLUNTARY WITNESS
Gianrico Carofiglio
A nine-year-old boy is found murdered at the bottom of a well near a popular beach resort in southern Italy. In what looks like a hopeless case for Guido Guerrieri, counsel for the defence, a Senegalese peddler is accused of the crime. Faced with small-town racism fuelled by the recent immigration from Africa, Guido attempts to exploit the esoteric workings of the Italian courts.
More than a perfectly paced legal thriller, this relentless suspense novel transcends the genre. A powerful attack on racism, and a fascinating insight into the Italian judicial process, it is also an affectionate portrait of a deeply humane hero.
PRAISE FOR
INVOLUNTARY WITNESS
INVOLUNTARY WITNESS
“A stunner. Guerrieri is a wonderfully convincing character; morose, but seeing the absurdity of his gloomy life, his vulnerability and cynicism laced with self-deprecating humour. It is the veracity of the setting and the humanity of the lawyer that makes the novel a courtroom drama of such rare quality.”
The Times
“Involuntary Witness raises the standard for crime fiction.
Carofiglio’s deft touch has given us a story that is both literary and gritty – and one that speeds along like the best legal thrillers. His insights into human nature – good and bad – are breathtaking.”
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver
“A powerful redemptive novel beautifully translated.”
Daily Mail
BITTER LEMON PRESS
First published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by
Bitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW
This new edition published in 2010
Bitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW
This new edition published in 2010
First published in Italian as
Ad occhi chiusi
by
Sellerio editore, Palermo, 2003
Ad occhi chiusi
by
Sellerio editore, Palermo, 2003
This edition is published with the financial assistance of the Italian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
English translation © Howard Curtis, 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form or by any means without written
permission of the publisher
reproduced in any form or by any means without written
permission of the publisher
The moral rights of Gianrico Carofiglio and Howard Curtis
have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
Acknowledgements
Page 57: ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ by Bruce Springsteen. © Bruce Springsteen. All rights reserved. Page 167: ‘Losing My Religion’ Words and Music by William Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. © 1991 Night Garden Music. Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Page 57: ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ by Bruce Springsteen. © Bruce Springsteen. All rights reserved. Page 167: ‘Losing My Religion’ Words and Music by William Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. © 1991 Night Garden Music. Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN : 978-1-904-73876-3
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Broad Street, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks
Other books
Under His Skin by Jennifer Blackstream
Shattered by C.J. Bishop
The Throwbacks by Stephanie Queen
The Wanting (D'Shar Men) by Colt, Shyla
HAPPIEST WHEN HORNIEST (Five Rough Hardcore Erotica Shorts) by Brockton, Nancy, Bosso, Julie, Kemp, Jane, Brownstone, Debbie, Jameson, Cindy
All This Could End by Steph Bowe
Flex by Steinmetz, Ferrett
Led Astray by a Rake by Sara Bennett
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
