About the Author

MASSIMO CARLOTTO was at the centre of one of the most controversial law cases in Italian history. In January 1976, Carlotto, at that time a member of a left-wing movement, stumbled across a brutally stabbed body in his hometown. The police accused him of the murder, and just before the appeal, his lawyer advised him to run. Betrayed finally in Mexico, Carlotto was captured and tortured, and sent back to Italy. Following trials, mistakes, and changes in the law, he was sent to prison, before being pardoned in 1993. His first book was an autobiography, but he then started writing a series in which the main character, Alligator, is a former convict who becomes a detective, and, like Carlotto, has a thirst for truth and justice.



Bandit Love

Closing the door on a crime ridden past, Marco Buratti plans to spend the rest of his days in the darkness of a seedy nightclub sipping Calvados and listening to the blues. But things don’t quite work out as he planned: though he may be through with his past, his past isn’t through with him. When his gangster friend, Beniamino Rossini’s girlfriend is kidnapped, Buratti is forced to investigate a case of international drug dealing. He will be thrown headfirst into the underworld he had struggled to escape. Here, new and old criminal organizations collide and innocent bystanders are as hard to find as straight cops.

Marco “The Alligator” Buratti is not only one of the most fully realized characters in contemporary crime fiction but also the ideal vivisector of a world in which criminals hold all the cards.



The Goodbye Kiss

When Massimo Carlotto's hard-boiled noir novel, The Goodbye Kiss begins, Giorgio Pellegrini is a fugitive living in South America. He fled Italy in the 70s after his involvement with the Red Brigades--now he's in his 30s and he's engaged in guerrilla warfare. One night, he's ordered to execute his friend, a fellow expatriate, and at that point Pellegrini decides it's time to return to Italy. Now just in case you imagine that Pellegrini feels "bad" about killing his friend, think again. Pellegrini doesn't feel bad about anything. In fact he admits that he enjoys killing.

Returning to Italy as a fugitive, he strikes a deal with former comrades, but the deal puts him under the thumb of the corrupt--but elegant--detective Ferruccio Anedda. Surviving in prison--mainly through hustling the services of a transvestite inmate, Pellegrini is finally released. But he never intended to be just another working stiff. Drawn to elegant, expensive clothes, and fine restaurants, Pellegrini wants to live the good life that only an aura of respectability can bring. But for that he needs money....

Throughout his criminal career, Pellegrini possesses an innate talent for selecting desperate women who will enable his plans--someone slightly older than him, lonely and shopworn, and he admits, "I was drawn to forty-year-olds. The thought of worming my way into their lives and toying with their weak spots made my head spin." Too detached to be truly sadistic, Pellegrini leaves a trail of female victims behind on his climb to success and respectability. With the protagonist Giorgio Pellegrini, author Carlotta creates one of noir fiction's darkest characters. Devoid of any scruples, compassion or guilt, and guided only by desire and self-preservation, Pellegrini negotiates his world with a few principles--women are tools to get what you want, "no witness, no risk," and when it comes to killing "pick the easiest, quickest and cleanest method."

With the help of a corrupt lawyer, Pellegrini strategically plots his way towards "rehabilitation." According to Italian law, Pellegrini will be considered fully rehabilitated if he lives the respectable life of a model citizen for a period of five years. But this new life means that Pellegrini is now slightly higher on the food chain, and he has criminal opportunities that were not open to him before. Pellegrini rather likes his new life, and when his past comes back to haunt him, he's prepared to do whatever is necessary to preserve it. It's Pellegrini's savvy ability to morph that makes this book such a phenomenal, riveting read. His strategic thinking--unfettered by morality and emotion--kept this reader eagerly turning pages until this astonishingly dark novel's nihilistic conclusion.