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DEATH IN AUGUST
by Marco Vichi and Stephen Sartarelli, trans.
Hodder & Stoughton, September 2011
240 pages
7.99 GBP
ISBN: 1444712217


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Usually, if I haven't got into a book within a few pages, it gets relegated to the 'must finish' pile, which is inevitably a waiting room for the charity shop run. But sometimes it's worth persevering, and I certainly found this to be the case with DEATH IN AUGUST, the first book I have read by Marco Vichi. The thing that struck me straight away about Vichi's work is its foreignness. Written in Italian and translated by Stephen Sartarelli for the English-speaking market, it is not just the 1960s Florentine setting which is exotic but the whole feel of the book, from pace to prose. Initially this left me baffled, as if I had been dumped in a strange land with no guidebook.

By contrast, I recently read a book by Anne Zaroudi, an English writer who married a Greek man and sets her crime series in that country. While the sense of the exotic was the same, in her hands I felt more comfortable, as if I were being shown around by a capable guide who understood when I might need something explained to me. However, despite the slow start as I got used to Vichi's nostalgic, laid back style, I found myself gradually drawn in to his strange new world.

It's around now that I would usually summarise the plot of the novel, but DEATH IN AUGUST isn't really about plot. Certainly, there's a murder – an old lady with a fortune, whose asthma attack looks a little too convenient – and Inspector Bordelli is tasked with solving it. But despite being essentially a police procedural, this book is much more concerned with character and atmosphere, history, politics and philosophy. Some of the best scenes – a dinner party during which the eclectic collection of guests tell grappa-fuelled stories, or Bordelli's memories of the war that still feels to him like it ended just yesterday – have nothing at all to do with the hunt for a killer.

I was much more concerned about Bordelli's efforts to give up smoking than I was about finding out "whodunit", and I could picture minor characters like the beautiful young Elvira, who is present for no more than eight pages, just as well as I could the inspector's sidekick or the key murder suspects. Vichi's writing is full of such cameos; rawly written, often unattractive. One man is described as having "a monstrous nose exploding in the middle of his face like dripping wax, eyes popping out of his death's-head, as though blown out from within by force, and a rotten, perpetually open mouth." There is a kind of beauty in language that can paint such an ugly picture.

Dominated by the sweltering heat of the Italian summer, the weariness of the protagonist's insomnia, and the constant presence of cigarette smoke or nicotine cravings, DEATH IN AUGUST is not always an easy or pleasant read, but it is a skilfully crafted one. Vichi's talent lies in creating an atmosphere you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. This is a book you may need to commit to, but you will be rewarded for your efforts.

§ Rin Simpson is a Bristol-based freelance writer and long standing crime fiction fan who is currently working on her first novel.

Reviewed by Rin Simpson, January 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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