{"id":7586,"date":"2018-11-26T07:46:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T12:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7586"},"modified":"2018-11-26T07:46:18","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T12:46:18","slug":"the-cold-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7586","title":{"rendered":"****The Cold Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Giovanni

Memorial tree for Giovanni Falcone; Dedda71, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Gianrico Carofiglio, translated by Howard Curtis \u2013 The Cold Summer<\/em> is a fascinating police procedural involves the amputation of one small arm of the Mafia in Apulia, a region that constitutes the heel of Italy\u2019s boot. Marshal Pietro Fenoglio is a carabinieri officer in the region\u2019s capital, Bari, investigating the kidnapping and death of the young son of local mafia leader Nicola Grimaldi.<\/p>\n

Speculation is that rivalries within the ranks of Grimaldi\u2019s organization precipitated the kidnapping, as it\u2019s one of a wave of occurrences linked to organized crime sweeping the area. \u201cProbably the most respected and certainly the most intelligent\u201d of Grimaldi\u2019s lieutenants, Vito Lopez, has disappeared. His wife and son have disappeared, too,which suggests the family is in hiding and makes Lopez a prime suspect in the kidnapping. Certainly, the Grimaldi family believes Lopez is the culprit. The growing rift in the Grimaldi organization could be a way to bring the family down, if only Fenoglio can figure out how to do it.<\/p>\n

The story is set in mid-1992, the \u201ccold summer,\u201d infamous in Italian law enforcement. First came the murders of prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three members of their police escort in a bomb blast outside Palermo. Less than two months later, prosecutor Paolo Borsellino and five members of his police escort also were murdered. These real-life events shake up not only Carofiglio\u2019s fictional characters, but the Italian people as well, leading to a crackdown on the mafia and new, harsher penalties for convicted mafiosi. Carofiglio thus places his story in an era that was particularly dangerous and high-stakes for police, prosecutors, and criminals alike.<\/p>\n

Carofiglio\u2019s characters are believable, flawed, and interesting. The carabinieri, never free from the oppressive danger around them, move forward cautiously, but with purpose. Fenoglio is especially articulate in his musings about the \u201cgrey areas\u201d in society in which many people, including his colleagues and even himself and his investigation, often operate.<\/p>\n

To everyone\u2019s surprise, Lopez turns himself in. He knows he\u2019s a dead man without police protection and maybe even with it. The interviews of him by Assistant Prosecutor Gemma D\u2019Angelo are presented as question-and-answer transcripts, devoid of editorial comment, gesture, or any emotion. This dry style is remarkably effective and makes Lopez\u2019s confession even more powerful by its simplicity. Despite the many crimes he confesses to, he is adamant in denying involvement in the Grimaldi boy\u2019s kidnapping. On that crime, Fenoglio and Pellecchia appear back to square one.<\/p>\n

When reading a book that has been translated, you can never be certain how closely the style adheres to the original. In this case, Howard Curtis has produced an English-language text that reads exceedingly smoothly, yet manages to convey the aura of the original Italian. You never feel as if you are reading a translation, but the original.<\/p>\n

Carofiglio is an award-winning novelist and a Bari native. He has long experience as a prosecutor specializing in organized crime, which informs this well-crafted novel beginning to end. It\u2019s a pleasure to read and to spend a little time (safely) in Fenoglio\u2019s perilous world.
\n<\/a>\"\"
\nAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases\u2014a few pennies to put in a jar to pay my WordPress bills. When you purchase this book by clicking on the photo above, you help me fill the jar. Thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gianrico Carofiglio, translated by Howard Curtis \u2013 The Cold Summer is a fascinating police procedural involves the amputation of one small arm of the Mafia in Apulia, a region that constitutes the heel of Italy\u2019s boot. Marshal Pietro Fenoglio … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****The Cold Summer - police procedural involving the mafia, a kidnapping, a turncoat, and some stand-up officials in southeast Italy, 1992.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,366,632,126],"tags":[1458,1177,1461,1460,678,1459],"class_list":["post-7586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal","category-drama","category-police","category-reading-2","tag-gianrico-carofiglio","tag-italy","tag-kidnapping","tag-mafia","tag-murder","tag-the-cold-summer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Ym","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7588,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586\/revisions\/7588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}