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INVOLUNTARY WITNESS is a cool, poised intelligent piece of writing. If you're looking for slam, bang, thwack crime fiction then you're in the wrong place. Guido Guerrieri is a defence lawyer in the southern Italian town of Bari. The book is ostensibly about a seemingly hopeless case where he's called on to defend a Senegalese pedlar who is accused of murdering a nine-year-old boy. But ultimately this acts as a backdrop for Guido's life. It's easy to say that a great deal of crime fiction is plot-driven rather than character-driven, and I often sigh to myself as yet another thriller peopled by cardboard cut-outs flashes before my eyes. But in INVOLUNTARY WITNESS Guido grows, changes and matures as a character. At the start he seems to be on self-destruct as his relationship with long-term partner Sara hits the buffers. Guido looks to be on a downward spiral of depression which he refuses to acknowledge. The case of Abdou Thiam changes his life, though. Abdou is a schoolteacher in his own country, but has come to Italy to find a better way of life. However, the only way for him to make a living is to sell fake designer goods to tourists on the beach. But when Ciccio Rubino is found murdered, it looks like Abdou is the only suspect. Guido, though, takes control of his own faltering life so he can attempt to clear Abdou. And while the courtroom scenes are engrossing and realistic -- as you would expect from a writer who is an anti-Mafia judge in Bari -- those featuring Guido away from the legal setting are often the most striking. The book, too, is a depressing indictment of the racism and hatred of immigrants that is rife in contemporary Europe. And in the end it is this, along with author Gianrico Carofiglio's portrayal of an all-too-falliable man, and translator Patrick Creagh's relaxed, laconic prose which will stay in my mind for a long time. Apparently there's a TV series based on the book running in Italy. INVOLUNTARY WITNESS is Carofiglio's debut novel, so I hope there's more to come from him.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, October 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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