The Day of the Owl (1961) by Leonardo Sciascia
Good Reads meta-data is 136 pages, rated 3.73 by 15,672 litizens.
DNA: Italy; Species: Sicily.
Genre: Krimi; Species: Mafia.
Verdict: Lean and mean.
Tagline: It starts with a bang. Well, two bangs.
A man in a business suit waiting to board a bus in a village outside Palermo is shot dead. The bus load of witnesses disappear even as he fell to the ground. When the carabinieri arrive no one saw anything, indeed, there is no one there to see or be seen. Captain Bellodi investigates out of curiosity, not because he thinks he will accomplish anything. As he does, others observe and comment.
The result is a travelogue of 1950’s Sicily, its dialect which sometimes mystifies Bellodi (from Parma), its poverty makes cigarette smuggling attractive, its distance from Rome measured in lightyears, its many divisions between christians, socialists, communists, villages, clans, and most of all, outsiders, its mafia or is that just a figment of overwrought journalism. All done in a spare prose.
In due course, despite the evidence, Bellodi is transferred and the case closed when an innocent man is framed for the deed in order to forestall investigation of this thing called the Mafia.
All in all, it is a confirmation of the North/South divide that is still noteworthy in Italy.
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The best of his oeuvre, they say. Sciascia (1921-1989) was a man for many seasons: a novelist, essayist, playwright, and member of the chamber of deputies, and the European parliament as a communist. Only a few of his many titles have been translated into English.