The Master of Knots

January 20, 2014
Brooding, sexual, and connected to Italyâs socio-political climate, Carlottoâs (The Goodbye Kiss) seventh book published in English falls into the current world of crime fiction. Like Gone Girl, or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the book is interested in how messiness of crime, with no taste for likable characters. Marco Buratti, Max the Memory, and Beniamino Rossini are former felons turned unlicensed detectives. In Carlottoâs latest installment of the Alligator Detective series, the trio must track down a gang of S&M filmmakers kidnapping women as slaves. As they navigate the secret world of S&M enthusiasts, they also must deal with the outbreak of political protests and police crackdowns. The book is less concerned with neat crime solving than it is with studying the lives of these three men. Carlottoâs tight prose makes for a quick and satisfying journey into a world absent of clear-cut morality.

February 1, 2014
Unlicensed private eye Marco Buratti, the Alligator (Bandit Love, 2010, etc.), tracks a missing wife down a rabbit hole even darker and dirtier than his usual haunts. It's hardly a surprise that Varese sales representative Mariano Giraldi's wife has vanished. Ever since he divined Helena Heintze's sexual preferences--bi and submissive--and began to hire her out as a bondage model, she's been tangled with some seriously rough trade. Now, she's evidently been kidnapped by the Bang Gang, a group of predators that blackmails women into making violent BDSM films that sometimes escalate to the point of no return. Though Buratti's not noted for his high moral tone, he draws the line at snuff films. So do his buddies, drug trafficker Beniamino Rossini and fat ex-gangster Max the Memory. Together, they pile up casualties as they pursue Helena's ties to Jay Jacovone, a snuff producer tight with the Miami Mafia; to Marisa Guarnero, a schoolteacher blackmailed into making BDSM videos; and to a slave calling herself Sherazade, who seems poised to become the next victim of the Bang Gang and their leader, the Master of Knots. Their task is rendered both more difficult and easier when their client disappears along with Antonina Gattuso, aka Barbie Slave, the lover Giraldi had inveigled into joining him and Helena in their dark frolics. As usual with Carlotto (At the End of a Dull Day, 2013, etc.), there's no suspense, since the characters are never in danger--they go straight from being fine to being dead--and Buratti wraps up the case with a scandalous lack of fuss. But the author shows a sure grasp of the double lives of BDSM devotees for whom unmasking would mean calamity.

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