Bologna, 1944. Worldweary Comandante De Luca is tasked with investigating three brutal murders, with the lives of ten Italian hostages on the line. The pitchblack prequel to the Inspector De Luca quartet, by the master of Italian Noir. A brutal evocation of a dystopian past, a stunning winter portrait of the debris and human detritus of wartime Bologna, and a gripping and complex trio of murders Peter May Imbued with the cruel compromises of a city on the brink of collapse, immersive, evocative and as opaque as the sootstained snow, this is historical crime fiction at its finest Tom Benjamin A truly insightful, penetrating and raw portrait of a man and a city ravaged by bloody conflict and the terror of fascism and war Paul Burke, European Literature Network In November 1944, in the worst winter ever known in Bologna, in the depths of the war, the bombscarred streets are home to starving refugees who have fled the advancing Allies. The Fascist Black Brigades, the officers of the S.S. and the partisans of the Italian Resistance compete for control of the city streets in bloody skirmishes. Comandante De Luca, who has proved himself the most brilliant investigator in Bologna, but who is now unwillingly working for the Political Police in a building that doubles as a torture facility, finds himself in trouble when three murders land on his desk a professor shot through the eye, an engineer beaten to death, and a German corporal left to be gnawed on by rats in a flooded...

Binding: Hardback;304 pages; Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Ltd; Classification: FFH; Weight: 714 g; Dimensions: 242 x 164 x 35

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