An absorbing, if sometimes excessive, study of the banality of evil.
In Cold Blood meets Less Than Zero, Roman style, in a fact-based novel about a notorious 2016 murder.
Though the victim, 23-year-old mechanic Luca Varani, was bludgeoned with a hammer and stabbed with knives over two hours by his assailants, the barbarism of the attack was less noteworthy than the absence of any apparent reason for it. Manuel Foffo, 29, a successful event organizer, and Marco Prato, 29, a failed university student and son of a restaurateur, were hardly killer types. However nasty their intentions were with Luca, who supplemented his income as a gay prostitute, they didn’t plan on subjecting him to more than a “fake rape.” But after ingesting massive amounts of cocaine and alcohol, which they shared with the victim, they gave in to their darkest impulses, killing him just to see what it was like. Lagioia deeply researched the story, using testimony from the largely unreliable main characters as well as friends and family of all three men. He sees the killers and their victim as products of difficult childhoods as well as the rot and despair of a rat-infested Rome, in which “you breathed a tense, angry air that could inspire imprudent behavior.” Most of the novel acts as a prelude to descriptions of the gory murder scene, which is recounted late in the book. Rather than provide a Rashōmon-like complexity to the narrative, all the contrasting views of Manuel, Marco, and Luca tend to bog things down. The author of the Strega Prize–winning novel Ferocity (2017) and host of a podcast based on the Varani murder, Lagioia makes brief appearances as himself in the role of interviewer. He's more effective in that role than in dispensing grand bits of philosophy: “No human being measures up to the tragedies that befall him.”
An absorbing, if sometimes excessive, study of the banality of evil.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781609458317
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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