In the night of Rome, nothing is what it seems

It’s all change in Rome. The new Pope, determined to bring radical reform to the Vatican, proclaims an extraordinary Jubilee year of Mercy. A new centre-left government replaces its disgraced predecessor, and sets about to rejuvenate the language of politics. And with crime lynchpin Samurai in jail, his protégé Sebastiano Laurenti attempts to establish himself as his designated successor. But he must reckon not only with a new generation of enterprising gangsters and racketeers—out to carve for themselves a slice of the profits and opportunities offered by the major public works planned for the Jubilee—but also with ambitious newly elected politician Chiara Visoni, and his own heart. Betrayals, alliances forged and broken, ambushes and infighting will inevitably alter the fragile political balance. As the sharks circle and the street-dogs fight, some tenuous hope endures, in the unlikely alliance of an incorruptible politician of the old left, all but forgotten, and a young bishop who refuses to play the Vatican’s power games. But it remains to be seen whether the long night of Rome can make room for redemption. Sharp and fast-paced, dark and taut, The Night of Rome is fiction that sails dangerously close to the wind of current events.

“The plot of Suburra, fast-paced and brutal, thrills from the get-go… I have not read such a blistering, grimly absorbing satire of Rome’s kickback and bribery culture in years.”—Ian Thomson in The New Statesman

“Epic, dark and sadly enlightening.”—Maxim Jakubowski in CrimeTime

“A panoramic portrait of a city reminiscent of James Ellroy and Don Winslow in its mordant vision and epic scale.”—John Dugdale in The Times

“Caustic and blunt… Suburra is a reminder that crime fiction can say as much about a society as other genres.”—Barry Forshaw in The Guardian

Carlo Bonini
Carlo Bonini is a staff writer at the Italian national daily, La Repubblica.

Giancarlo De Cataldo
Giancarlo De Cataldo is the author of the bestselling novel, Romanzo Criminale, an essayist, the author of numerous TV screenplays, and a judge on the circuit court of Rome.

• Oct 10 2019
  Antihero City
  — Los Angeles Review of Books