The past is a foreign country

Format:

Book

Title:

The past is a foreign country

Uniform Title:

Passato è una terra straniera. English

Author:

Carofiglio, Gianrico, 1961- author.

ISBN:

9780312383961

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Publication:

New York : Minotaur Books, 2010.

Physical Description:

244 pages ; 22 cm

General Note:

"A Thomas Dunne book."

Translation of: Il passato è una terra straniera.

Summary:

As world-weary Lieutenant Chiti spends sleepless nights hunting for the serial rapist terrorizing his city, as 22 years old trainee lawyer Giorgio is befriended by dangerously charismatic Francesco. Giorgio becomes Francesco's pupil and learns to cheat at cards. Slowly the innocent Giorgio is lured into a corrupt world of beautiful women and casual violence. Giorgio enters a world where his own image of himself starts to fragment, revealing someone he no longer recognizes: someone who both scares and attracts him. In parallel, we are given the story of the artistically inclined Lieutenant Chiti of the carabinieri who is investigating a series of brutal rapes in Bari. A shocking dénouement draws together the two strands of the story in a wholly unexpected way and brings a catharsis for both Giorgio and Lieutenant Chiti.

Subject(s):

Cardsharping -- Italy -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Genre:

Detective and mystery fiction.

Fiction.

Legal stories.

Detective and mystery stories.

Added Author:

Curtis, Howard, 1949-

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Silver Falls Library	MYS CAROFIGLIO	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

An international bestseller and winner of Italy's prestigious Premio Bancarella prize--an intense psychological thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley As world-weary Lieutenant Chiti spends sleepless nights hunting for the serial rapist terrorizing his city, trainee lawyer Giorgio is befriended by dangerously charismatic Francesco. Slowly the innocent Giorgio is lured into a corrupt world of beautiful women and casual violence. Then one terrifying night Giorgio is forced to realize just how far he has left his past behind.

Author Notes

GIANRICO CAROFIGLIO is an anti-Mafia prosecutor living in Bari, South Italy. His prize-winning Involuntary Witness and A Walk in the Dark became instant bestsellers in Italy, where they are the basis of a major television series, and have since been sold around the world.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Set largely in the southern Italian city of Bari, this stylish psychological thriller from Carofiglio (A Walk in the Dark) fuses Jack Kerouac's On the Road with hard-edged crime fiction a la Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallander saga. When model law student Giorgio Cipriani meets charismatic philosophy student Francesco Carducci, he becomes enthralled by Francesco's dangerous lifestyle. Within weeks, Giorgio has abandoned his studies for high stakes poker games in which he and his newfound mentor cheat players out of large sums of money. Giorgio soon finds his life filled with late-night poker scams, drinking, drugs, and sexual encounters with random women. When Francesco manipulates him to take a "holiday" in Spain, Giorgio realizes just how completely he's forsaken his past. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Chiti of the Bari police tries to identify an elusive criminal who's been assaulting local women. The intertwining plot lines build to a haunting ending. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Changing direction from his legal-thriller series starring Guido Guerrieri (Reasonable Doubts, 2007), Carofiglio offers a noirish thriller about a naive pre-law student who becomes involved with a cardsharp and watches his life spin out of control (think The Talented Mr. Ripley). Giorgio is looking for a little excitement when he befriends the charismatic Francesco at a poker game. Soon Francesco is training Giorgio in the art of bilking suckers, and the pair becomes a formidable team. But poker games are the least of Francesco's interests. He lectures Giorgio in his version of Nietzschean philosophy, introduces him to women, and eventually enlists his help in smuggling cocaine from Spain to Italy. Giorgio knows he's in too deep but is powerless to extricate himself until the formidable Lieutenant Chiti, with shades of Dostoyevsky's Porfiry Petrovich, enters the picture, on the trail of a serial rapist. Carofiglio establishes the mood early we feel Francesco setting the hook in Giorgio and slowly, excruciatingly reeling him in and then he heightens the tension by jumping back and forth in time, revealing a little but not enough to allow us to relax. As Francesco plays Giorgio, so Carofiglio plays the reader.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal Review

As a series of rapes terrorize the city of Bari in the Apulia region (Italy's boot heel), three young men must confront their dark sides. One thinks he might be sliding into madness. The second abandons his desire to be an attorney and is seduced into a life of crime. The third is a sociopath. VERDICT Former Mafia prosecutor Carofiglio (A Walk in the Dark; Involuntary Witness) packs enough psychological suspense into this tightly woven tale to satisfy readers who crave another Barbara Vine or yearn for Georges Simenon's non-Maigret novels. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.