A Private Venus

August 20, 2012
A lost Italian noir classic from 1966 finally makes its way into English translation. Born of a Russian father and Italian mother, Scerbanencoâonce called the "human typewriter"âwas said to be more prolific than Simenon, although much of his output was in the romance genre. During the three years before his 1969 death, however, he wrote a series of terse, unsentimental crime thrillers featuring Dr. Duca Lamberti, starting with this one. Just released from prison after euthanizing a dying patient, Duca reluctantly agrees to treat a young alcoholic, only to find that the youth's backstory involves a murdered Milan streetwalker, a white slavery ring, pornography, and torture. "He wouldn't have devoted a single minute to this whole business if he hadn't sensed the ruthless, violent hand of the Mafia behind it." This edition also includes a brief autobiographical memoir from a noir writer richly deserving rediscovery.

March 15, 2014
A disgraced doctor's ticket to redemption requires him to rescue a young man even more lost than he is in this slice of noir first served in Italy in 1966 and finally translated into English. After helping a dying patient into the great beyond, Duca Lamberti was struck off the medical register and sentenced to three years in prison. But he didn't lose all his friends, and now one of them, Milan's Superintendent Luigi Carrua, has set him up with a new job upon his release. The assignment seems simple: to wean celebrated engineer Pietro Auseri's son Davide, 22, from the bottle. But Duca immediately sees that normal therapies won't keep the troubled young man sober for long, and a suicide attempt the first night Duca's on the job tells him that Davide's carrying a heavier burden than alcoholism. It's not long before the boy reveals his terrible secret: He failed to prevent the death of shop assistant Alberta Radelli a year ago, after she hitched a ride with him and they impulsively drove to the countryside and made love. Although Alberta begged this intimate stranger to take her away instantly, that very day, he drove her back toward Milan instead and dropped her at the side of the road, and there she was found, her wrists slit, the following day. Luckily for Davide, Duca, reviewing the evidence surrounding the case, realizes that Alberta's death was no suicide, and he identifies the best possible therapy for what ails Davide: solving her murder. The first volume in Scerbanenco's Milano Quartet is a blast from the past, a sleek, stripped-down reminder of the fast, brutal days of Continental noir. Sensitive souls will notice that the author's attitude toward the LGBT community has dated in more glaring ways.

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Starred review from May 15, 2014

Originally published in 1966 and now finally translated into English, Scerbanenco's first book in his award-winning Milano Quartet, A Private Venus, is an arresting noir novel that examines the themes of alcoholism, deviant sex, remorse, retribution, and murder. Duca Lamberti, the antihero protagonist, is a disbarred doctor just out of prison after serving three years for the assisted suicide of a terminally ill woman. He has a penchant for making bad choices, opposing authority, and being obstinate--a potent mix of personality traits for a successful noir lead character. He is hired by a rich industrialist to babysit his wayward son, an apparent chronic alcoholic. Behind the son's behavior there is a secret--the murder of a young woman. Traitors to All is even more impressive. It's not surprising that it won the most prestigious European crime fiction prize, the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere. The novel is astonishing--bleak to the bone with great dialog, black humor, unforgettable characters, and a complex plot that is not in the least heavy-handed. Duca is asked to investigate a drowning, which the police have dismissed as an accident. The ultimate denouement is thoroughly satisfying. The sense of time and place (1960s Milan) is palpable and impeccable. Scerbanenco's prose is brilliant and disquieting. It's a shock to realize how powerful European noir writing was 40 to 50 years ago. VERDICT Brave and beautiful, these novels are highly recommended for fans of literary noir; Scerbanenco's appellation as godfather of Italian Noir is not hyperbole.--Seamus Scanlon, Ctr. for Worker Education, CUNY

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