Violent and slightly disturbing. I didn’t enjoy those aspects, although it was about a violent murder and the husband/father of victims become a monster while the murderer goes in a saintly directing, so would logically have to be violent. I just don’t enjoy reading about the ugliness of humanity. I would have like to peek at the original Italian, not sure how style changed through translation. Was a quick read.

Massimo Carlotto has a unique background for a crime writer: a convicted murderer, fugitive from justice, done hard time in prison and ultimately cleared in one of Italy's most famous court cases. Little wonder that he is regarded as one of the pre-eminent Italian crime novelists.

Death's Dark Abyss is a hard-boiled crime yarn in the style of Dashiell Hammett or James M. Cain. The story starts with a robbery that goes horribly wrong, with one of the robbers panicking and murdering a female hostage and her child. He is captured and convicted, but stubbornly refuses to identify his accomplice.

Fifteen years later the killer, Raffeallo, is dying of cancer and launches an appeal for a pardon so that he can die a free man. He appeals to the husband and father of his victims, Silvano, to forgive him and back his plea. However Silvano has stared into death's dark abyss and is still nursing his demons; he'd rather see Raffaello rot in jail no matter how sick he is. Suddenly Silvano changes his mind. There is one thing Raffaello can still do for him - give him the name of his accomplice.

This is a short, sparse novel where not a word is wasted. The story rollicks along, and there are enough plot twists to keep the reader engaged. It is also pretty brutal; this book is not for the faint-hearted, with some sex scenes and violence that are pretty strong stuff.

I enjoyed this book very much, and will certainly seek out more of Carlotto's work.
( )

Lean Italian noir that threatens to echo Charles Bronson's howls. Fast and a bit twisty, although dialogue a bit boggy. ( )

Silvano's wife and child were murdered 15 years ago during a robbery gone bad. Now the murderer is dying of cancer in prison and wants to be released to spend his last days in freedom. He needs Silvano to agree to allow his release. Silvano initially refuses, but then sees a way to get his revenge (and to lead him to the criminal's partner in the robbery who was never been found). This was a thrilling book, as we watch a man who was once essentially good and decent, transformed by his hatred and need for revenge into a cold-hearted monster. Although the criminal is not someone we can sympathize with, Carlotto nevertheless can make the reader horrified Silvano's means and methods of revenge.

FYI: Amazon notes that the author spent 7 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, before becoming a writer on his release in 2003.
3 1/2 stars ( )

This is a nasty but thoroughly gripping noirish nightmare. During a botched robbery, an innocent bystander, Clara Contin, and her young son Enrico are killed. One of the perpetrators gets away with the loot but the other, Raffaello Beggiato, is convicted and given a life sentence. Beggiato claims his partner was the killer but refuses to give up his name. Fifteen years later, Silvano Contin, who lost his wife and son, has been haunted ever since by the escape of the other murderer and has never moved on with his life. Contin gets an opportunity to find Beggiato’s partner and get revenge when Beggiato petitions to be released as he is dying of cancer. From this tempting premise, Carlotto creates a tense and disturbing story of Contin’s descent into darkness. It seems like it would be difficult to make a grieving widower unsympathetic but Contin quickly turns into a violent and vicious criminal. You can’t look away from his craziness though.

The story is told in the alternating voices of Contin and Beggiato. Carlotto does a good job of distinguishing between the two. Contin’s narrative is coolly logical while Beggiato’s is overflowing with thoughts, highly emotional and full of nonstop swearing. Despite this, a deliberate parallel is drawn between the two. Beggiato, of course, has been imprisoned the whole time but Contin’s stuck in a prison of his own making. They both describe the little details of their separate existences – both lead banal lives, doing the same thing over and over, trying to make time pass without thinking too much about it. Beggiato is disgusted by the poor quality prison food but Contin eats crappy prepared food by choice – he won’t cook or go to restaurants though he has the money. Beggiato complains of the indifference towards prisoners shown by the guards and the public but Contin thinks they are too coddled and feels contempt towards the lawyer, priest and a prison volunteer who try to get him to support Beggiato’s release. Carlotto can be repetitive on occasion and Contin continually refers to the title – for him, death’s dark abyss is the terrifying darkness that Clara described shortly before she died.

Beggiato is an understandable character – he’s a small-time criminal who, on drugs, did something that appalled even himself. He’s selfish and shallow, thinking mostly of how he’ll have a good time before he dies if he gets out. He does feel badly though – he regrets that the murders happened even if some the feeling stems from the shocking nature of the crime and the fact that it gave him a much harsher sentence. Contin, however, can be hard to comprehend. It’s understandable that the grief caused him to abandon his former life but given that his current life is unhappy and meaningless, his active rejection of any sort of consolation – he refuses to see a therapist, take comfort from religion or really have any interactions with other people – becomes worrisome. His machinations concerning Beggiato’s release also make sense at first but he gradually moves towards disgusting and violent actions which are narrated with the same calm as his everyday routine. Contin’s actions have a vicious strain of misogyny which is definitely off-putting, though a couple women get the last word with him. For example, the wealthy woman who volunteers at the prison is a target of his hatred, as well as the lawyer and priest, but he only attempts to get revenge on her. He often refers to how beautiful Clara was and uses that as her main characteristic so it’s easy to imagine that in his happy, well-off former life he had some slight but not noticeable sexist views/ideas of the double standard which have curdled into an especial hatred of women. The possible belief that he deserved all his former good fortune may have morphed into the wild and out of proportion self-righteousness that leads him to justify his violence. Plenty of American films and books feature a man whose loved ones have been kidnapped or killed who then proceeds to go on a violent spree, possibly against foreign-accented cardboard evil characters, for which the audience is expected to feel sympathy. This book is a nice contrast as Contin’s violence correctly leads people to call him “sick”, “crazy” and “a monster”. ( )