Valerio Varesi

River of Shadows is the first in a series of detective novels set in Italy’s Po Valley. The novel begins with the Po River in flood and a barge floating down the torrent out of control. When the barge is finally brought to rest, its owner has disappeared. That same day, his brother falls from a window in a local hospital.

Commissario Soneri pushes to have these two seemingly unrelated cases investigated, against his superiors' wishes. He heads to the Po, giving priority to the bargeman’s baffling disappearance, crossing swords with taciturn locals determined to give him little to go on.

The plot of this novel is not that remarkable, developing gradually rather than with any breathtaking twists. Varesi’s real achievement is how he has placed the Po River at the centre of the story, providing an atmospheric and unusual setting for a murder mystery. His description of life on the river and its vicissitudes is compelling.

Soneri is not a bad character as the basis for a series. My one demurral is that every good Euro detective needs a source of angst, and Soneri's mostly seems to be that his girlfriend is a nymphomaniac who likes to have sex in semi-public situations. I find that less believable and less compelling than the dark forces haunting characters such as Wallender and Erlendur.… (mere)

giallo medio. Libro un po' noioso perchè il tema di fondo (la piccola città del nord irrimediabilmente corrotta dalla grande malavita) è riproposto come una litania moralistica ad ogni pagina, attraverso le riflessioni del commissario protagonista.
Eppure il tema non è marginale: l'analisi, in forma di romanzo, di come sta andando questo paese, è abbastanza ben fatta da creare quel senso di malessere che molti di noi provano ogni volta che, impotenti e un po' vili (ma che fare?) vediamo nella nostra città alzarsi un nuovo palazzo di sei piani dove non serve a nulla, spuntare una rotonda nel vuoto della campagna, aprire e chiudere rapidamente negozi brillanti che vendono il nulla, assistere all'arresto, per collusione con la criminalità, di un funzionario pubblico dal nome e dal pedigree impeccabilmente nordico...… (mere)

This wasn't the easiest book to read. A murder investigation is tangled with political overtones and Commissario is drawn back to an old stamping ground. He recognises the dead woman as the landlady of the student house where his now dead wife used to board. In latter years the guesthouse has become a bordello and Soneri comes to wonder if that was its role when his wife lived there.

Complicating things is that Italy's two police forces are constantly trying to score easy points at the other's expense and Commissario Soneri, part of the state police force, feels constantly under threat from the officers of the carabinieri.

I hung in there until everything was resolved and the murder mystery was solved, but I can't say I enjoyed the book.… (mere)