A Walk in the Dark

Guido Guerreri is getting himself in trouble again: this time risking the wrath of all the vested interests and violent machismo of the southern Italian city in which he works, in order to help a woman battered by her well-connected husband. No other lawyer will touch the case, but despite the considerable risks involved, Guerreri - whose grudging attachment to hopeless cases is matched only by his constitutional pessimism - can't refuse. Nor can he deny an attraction to the beautiful and damaged Sister Claudia, the young woman who runs the shelter where the victim is staying.

Gianrico Carofiglio has parlayed personal courage and political success into serious literary fame. For many years he was an anti-mafia prosecutor in Southern Italy, combating organised crime, corruption and human trafficking. Now a member of the Italian Senate, his series of legal procedural thrillers featuring the morose, principled, literate and occasionally infuriating Guerreri have sold over two and a half million copies in Italy alone. A Walk in the Dark is the second of this series, and Howard Curtis' fine translation for Bitter Lemon Press brings a modern Italian phenomenon to British readers: a crime novel that's as introspective as it is page-turning, as powerfully affecting as it is thrilling.