The Deliverance of Evil Author: Roberto Costantini | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EMX8SOG | Format: PDF
The Deliverance of Evil Description
Winner of the Scerbanenco Prize for the best Italian crime thriller,
The Deliverance of Evil is a masterful psychological thriller about an edgy policeman’s personal evolution—or devolution—as seen through the lens of a devilish case that consumed him early in his career and continues to haunt him twenty-four years later.
With excitement over Berlusconi rise to power and Italy in a state of gleeful and frenzied anticipation over the national soccer team’s improbable run to the 1982 World Cup, Italians are filled with hopeful feelings. The night before the big match, Elisa Sordi—an attractive eighteen year-old employed by the Vatican—vanishes. The case falls to a young, hedonistic post-Fascist officer named Michele Balistreri. Headstrong and ambivalent about spending his life as a policeman, Balistreri is annoyed to be interrupted during the festivities and takes the case lightly. But when Elisa’s tortured corpse surfaces in the Tiber, Balistreri doubts he will ever be able to forgive himself for his inattention. After the man he arrested for the murder is exonerated, and tantalizing links to the Vatican and top right-wing politicians ignored, the case is never solved. Despondent, Michele spirals into drinking and depression.
Twenty-four years later Italy is victorious once again in the World Cup, but the nation has changed. The balloon of optimism from the Eighties has deflated, and the now-gloomy nation suffers under the arrogant and corrupt Berlusconi government. A weak economy and chaotic immigration policies that have inflamed racist sentiments provide a stark contrast to the last time Italy tasted sweet soccer victory. Disturbingly, more lax divorce laws have spawned a trend of “revenge” violence against women who try to assert their independence.
Suddenly Sordi’s mother apparently commits suicide, and then a slew of female corpses begin to turn up all with a letter of the alphabet carved into their bodies. The apparent hate behind the murders causes Balistreri to realize that the case that has haunted for twenty-four years may be heating up again, and with a newfound sense of purpose he charges into his work: the opportunity to redeem the darkest part of his past.
The murders continue, and what initially seemed to be the work of a lone psychopath reveals itself to be part of something much bigger and more dangerous. Finally Balistreri realizes that the letters marking each victim are spelling out a chilling message.
From the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 1308 KB
- Print Length: 561 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 162365002X
- Publisher: Quercus (February 11, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EMX8SOG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,893 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Many of the factors that other reviewers had noted as problematic for them are ones that don't tend to bother me that much. Length? Whatever. Some of the best novels I've read are 500 pages or more. Gritty, noir-like atmosphere? Sure; I've enjoyed lots of Scandicrime, not to mention Val McDermid. Unlikeable protagonist? Absolutely; bring him/her on. That just introduces a great layer of complexity into the plot.
What I dislike, however, is an author whose plot feels so out of control that I am constantly left bewildered and trying to puzzle things out. Costantini kicks this off with 150 pages revolving around an unsolved 1982 tragedy: the violent murder of young Elisa Sordi, a beautiful woman whom our main character, Roman cop Michele Balistreri, has lusted after and whose murder he fails to solve. Then we lurch forward in time, to 2005/2006, and meet Balistreri (whose tale is now -- inexplicably -- being told in the third person rather than the first person) trying to solve a series of other deaths. We're supposed to believe he feels guilty because he's jaded and exhausted -- but guilty about what? The author never makes this convincing. The number and nature of the crimes and suspects lead us all over the place, so I began feeling just as jaded as the fictional Balistreri, although my aversion to the tale could be directly linked to the lack of focus and uneven pacing. Every time I thought to myself, aha, this latest twist means that somehow these sprawling narratives will be tied up and we'll follow an interesting course to the end, the result was disappointing.
Eventually, I simply became fed up.
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