De Luca is on the run at the end of hostilities. Threatened with exposing his time with fascist police, he is forced to help a partisan police officer with solving the murder of a family. This is Italy 1945 with many political scores to be settled. De Luca, despite his terrible stomach problems and near terminal insomnia, wins the day.

A case that at first appears unconnected to the war soon turns out to be rooted in institutional corruption. The second instalment of Lucarelli’s trilogy makes clear that both sides of Italy are in turmoil; Allied or Access, fascist or communist, those in power are out for themselves.

De Luca is brilliantly drawn. Largely inscrutable, even to himself, Lucarelli shows, rather than tells, us that this is a man under unbearable stress. Nauseous but unable to eat, exhausted but incapable of sleep, De Luca is clearly tormented by his past.
Full review: http://www.26books.com/?p=214