Out of Season

September 3, 2018
Manzini’s engrossing third mystery featuring Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone (after 2016’s Adam’s Rib) opens with a cargo van blowing a tire and veering off a wet, icy road in Italy’s mountainous Valle d’Aosta region into a stand of trees. The driver and his front seat passenger are killed almost instantly. It looks like a job for the highway police, until the authorities discover that the van has stolen license plates. Rocco and his motley crew of officers take over the case, which rapidly develops into a web of crimes—from money laundering to murder. The complex, plausible plot is peopled with authentic characters, most notably the wry, pot-smoking, disillusioned Rocco, who was born and raised in Rome. When asked why his superiors transferred him to this remote part of Italy, he replies: “Punishment... let’s just say that I got a little overenthusiastic.” His conversations with colleagues and suspects are sprinkled with wit and astutely shed light on Italy’s political and cultural conundrums. Readers will hope to see a lot more of Rocco.

September 1, 2018
In the Alpine town of Aosta, Italy, endearingly bumbling police officers and quaint caf�-society denizens uneasily coexist with less-fortunate citizens and brutal criminals. Wearily bridging the realms is Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone, who smokes a joint in his office every morning to face the day. In this third novel in the series to be translated into English (after Adam's Rib? and Black Run, both 2016), Schiavone investigates the kidnapping of a woman whom readers follow through a harrowing ordeal. Chiara Berguet's kidnappers' van crashed, killing them, and now she is slowly dying while awaiting rescue. In the meantime, Schiavone unwittingly faces danger of his own, as a foe from the past is out for revenge. Manzini is a best-selling author in Italy, and it's easy to see why. Chiara's story torturously elongates time as readers suffer her bewilderment and pain, hanging on for rescue as the pages turn. This plot point alone is worth the read, with Schiavone and his hapless colleagues a bonus. A next-read for those who enjoy Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series and Louise Penny's Armand Gamache novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)