I Will Have Vengeance (The Winter of Commissario Ricciardi) - Softcover

De Giovanni, Maurizio

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1609454391 ISBN 13: 9781609454395

Publisher: World Noir, 2018

Synopsis

Commissario Ricciardi has visions. He sees the final seconds in the lives of victims of violent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one of the most successful homicide detectives on the Naples police front. But the horror of his visions has hollowed him out emotionally. He drinks too much and sleeps too little. Other than his loyal partner, Brigadier Maione, he has no friends.

Naples, March 1931: a bitter wind stalks the city streets, and murder lies at its chill heart. When the world’s greatest tenor, Maestro Arnaldo Vezzi, is found brutally murdered in his dressing room at Naples’ San Carlo Theatre, the enigmatic and aloof Commissario Ricciardi is called in to investigate.

Arrogant and bad-tempered, Vezzi was adored by millions and hated by hundreds, but with the livelihoods of everyone at the San Carlo opera at stake, who there would have committed such an act? Ricciardi is determined to find out.

Fans of Donna Leon and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán will thrill to this fresh voice in crime fiction. I Will Have Vengeance is the first book in a quartet of masterful crime novels set in fascist Italy.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Milano Appel is an American translator of Italian literature. She obtained a doctorate in Romance languages from Rutgers University in 1970. She has translated, among others, works by Claudio Magris, Paolo Giordano, Giovanni Arpino and Goliarda Sapienza. She was awarded the John Florio Prize in 2012 for her translation of Arpino's Scent of a Woman. She is also working on English translations of Giordano’s Like Family (2015, Pamela Dorman Books/Viking), Syrian Dust by Francesca Borri (2016, Seven Stories Press) and Don't Tell Me You're Afraid by Giuseppe Catozzella (2016, Penguin Press).

Review

Praise for I Will Have Vengeance

“De Giovanni’s distinct brand of noir...will appeal to Agatha Christie and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán fans.”
―Publishers Weekly

"[I Will Have Vengeance] introduces a most unforgettable sleuth."
―Library Journal

“The combination of an unusual detective, historical setting and Italian opera was impossible to resist.”
―Crimetime.co.uk

“...such detailed images in the novel that will haunt me for a long time to come.”
―Books and Writers

“...a colourful novel that imparts a strong sense of time and place...there’s more than a touch of Agatha Christie in this tale.”
―Curious book fans

Praise for the Commissario Ricciardi Series

“These are ingenious crime novels, written with intelligence and enthusiasm. [...] anyone who loves Italy and especially Naples, and anyone who seeks crime fiction that marries entertainment to illuminating reflections on history and the human condition, will surely find these novels fascinating and compelling.”
―Allan Massie, The Wall Street Journal

“De Giovanni has created one of the most interesting and well-drawn detectives in fiction.”
―The Daily Beast

“Reading a novel by Maurizio de Giovanni is like stepping into a Vittorio De Sica movie.”
―The New York Times

"The author’s elegant style ennobles the wretched lives he views with such compassion”
―The New York Times Book Review

“Impossible to resist”
―Crimetime UK

“Ricciardi is an intriguing detective.”
―Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: World Noir
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1609454391
• ISBN 13: 9781609454395
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224