Cinque indagini romane
This volume brings together short stories published in several anthologies by this publisher, starting with Capodanno in giallo. Gathered together, they make it possible to reconstruct what can be called the antecedent of a character who has wide literary notoriety today, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone. A cop who is anything but good-natured, rather eccentric in the shoes of the enemy of crime. In the morning, he lights up a joint to give himself momentum; when it happens, he does not disdain a few bargains with the booty from a foiled heist; he is rough with everyone, brutal with the bad guys, impatient with the women. Nevertheless, those who read his adventures would like him as a friend.
As punishment, the commands will transfer him to the snowy midst of Aosta, where the novels that gave him such notoriety are set. Meanwhile, in the stories in this volume, we meet him before the forced move. He knows he is about to say goodbye to his beloved city, but he does not know what his fate is. In this uncertainty, the past grips him on all sides sculpting his pessimism, feeding his melancholy.
He travels through Rome, familiar places, old acquaintances, while in his brash way he intuits unthought-of solutions to criminal enigmas. And these always have backgrounds of dark humanity. So much so that his flaws appear the other side, necessarily anti-rhetorical, of the medal of vivid pity for the derelicts and of the great pain that once tore at his heart. In short, he seems a kind of fallen angel.