The Damned Season [Paperback]

Set in 1946, Lucarelli's taut middle volume of his De Luca trilogy (after Carte Blanche) finds Commissario De Luca, who was a police officer during the Mussolini regime, in a perilous position. Under an assumed name, De Luca is just trying to survive any way he can when a member of the Partisan Police catches him in the woods outside Ravenna and drags him into an investigation of a triple homicide. Despite his instincts for self-preservation, De Luca can't refrain from making observations that display his professional expertise. When he's seduced by the local strongman's girlfriend, De Luca finds himself further at risk. While many authors have written of the conflicts faced by honest police officers in Nazi Germany, few American readers will be familiar with the aftermath of WWII in Italy, and Lucarelli excels at portraying fear and suspicion in a country struggling to recover from its national trauma. (May)
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The second in the De Luca Trilogy to appear in the U.S. is set in 1946 and finds the former Commisario De Luca dodging partisan reprisals for the role he played as a member of the secret police under Mussolini. When he's recognized by a partisan in an isolated village between Bologna and Rome, De Luca--torn between the need to keep a low profile and the inevitable curiosity he feels in the face of an unsolved crime--reluctantly agrees to help investigate a double murder with political implications. The moral ambiguity at the heart of Italy's postwar power struggle permeates the action in this tense, atmospheric tale. The hero's own ambiguity about his actions during the war, as well as his cynical view of the postwar world, links him to other ideologically imperiled investigators (Arkady Renko in Martin Cruz Smith's Moscow-set series, for example), but the most notable aspect of this trilogy is Lucarelli's ability to give texture to a particular historical moment. Bill Ott
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"A fresh and exciting new voice in Italian crime fiction. Keep the translations coming."-Booklist

It is 1946. De Luca suffers from insomnia and has lost his appetite. He's got problems with women and a case that he can't crack. In this second installment of the heralded De Luca trilogy, the Commissario is posing as a certain Giovanni Morandi to avoid reprisals for the role he played during the fascist dictatorship. Exposed by a member of the partisan police, De Luca is forced to investigate a series of brutal murders, becoming a reluctant player in Italy's postwar power struggle.

Carlo Lucarelli is one of Italy's best-loved crime writers. He teaches at Alessandro Baricco's Holden School in Turin and in Padova's maximum security prison. He conducts the program "Blue Night" on Italian network television, and his novels Almost Blue and Lupo Mannaro have both been made into films.