The Crocodile

Starred review from May 27, 2013
De Giovanni (I Will Have Vengeance) manages to conjure up the terrifying darkness at the heart of a serial killer in this chilling procedural. A mob informant’s false accusation of corruption against Sicilian Insp. Giuseppe Lojacono not only derails a promising career but destroys his relationship with his wife and daughter. Exiled to Naples, to a police station “in the flabby belly of a city that was decomposing,” Lojacono spends his working days playing computer poker. He gets a chance to exercise his dormant gray cells when a gunman kills a 16-year-old boy, and the detective, one of the first on the scene, notices that the killer left behind some used tissues. Still, he’s shunted to the sidelines, until another death follows, and his theory that this death isn’t related to organized crime attracts the interest of the investigating prosecutor. Descriptions of the police probe alternate with sections written from the murderer’s viewpoint, effectively heightening the suspense, and the ending doesn’t pull any punches.

October 15, 2013

An unknown killer assassinates three young people in Naples. There is no apparent connection among them, but at the site of each murder a paper tissue is found with the murderer's tears on it. The newspapers dub the unknown killer "the Crocodile" because he sheds false tears over his victim and, like the beast, waits silently for his victim to appear before he pounces. The man assigned to catch him, Insp. Giuseppe Lojacono, is a disgraced detective. Wrongfully accused of collusion with the Mafia, he has lost his career and his family. The papers suspect that these are mob killings, but Lojacono thinks otherwise. This is his chance to redeem himself. VERDICT Another quality noir thriller from Europa.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2013
A wonderfully suspenseful novel in which de Giovanni restores life to the cliche of the world-weary detective. Inspector Giuseppe Lojacono has been tainted with rumors that he informed on the Mafia, so he's transferred from Sicily to Naples to work a desk job, which for him consists of playing online poker. But a methodical serial killer is on the loose, and Lojacono's bumbling colleagues have no idea how to solve the case, so they have no choice but to turn to him for help. Particularly eager to help solve the mystery behind the murders is the attractive, no-nonsense Assistant District Attorney Laura Piras. She slowly develops confidence that Lojacono is the only one who'll be able to catch the murderer, dubbed "The Crocodile" by the media because he seems a ruthless killing machine. Three murders have recently been committed, each of the victims an only child of a single parent, and that seems to Lojacono to be a significant clue. His colleagues on the police force seem to think the Mafia-like Camorra might be responsible, though Lojacono knows the M.O. of the Camorristas and doesn't see a connection. The psychologically shrewd inspector eventually concludes that the children murdered are perhaps not the "real" victims but that the killer is trying to get revenge on the parents in a twisted and horrifying way. Although estranged from his adolescent daughter, Lojacono has a father's sense that the worst possible pain that can be inflicted on a parent is the death of a child, so he methodically starts to look for connections among the parents of the three victims, and eventually, he uncovers a bond...but he also finds another potential victim: a 6-month-old infant. In this crisply translated novel, de Giovanni explores Lojacono's loneliness and vulnerability while simultaneously revealing his brilliance as a detective.

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