Personal Terror Political Terror - A Novel
Guido Pagliarino
Translator Barbara Maher
Publisher: Tektime
Summary
In the year 2000 the elderly emeritus police commissioner D'Aiazzo, is working alongside Commissioner Sordi, his former employee, as a consultant at the Police Headquarters in Turin. He is investigating a series of murders that seem to be the anarchic work of a sadistic serial killer or people sacrifices to the devil of one of the sulfurous sects in the macabre-obsessed Turin. But it could also or only have elements related to the brand of terrorism that had raged in Italy until about twenty years beforehand and still drags on into the end of the millennium. The monster suppresses his victims in a horrendous way, pushing the murder weapon into an ear until it reaches the brain and kills them. The investigation unfolds through disturbing suspicions, identity crises, psychological annotations, and reaches its conclusive acme in the unsettling final revelation, which has the death of the police commissioner himself, as the very consequence of his discovery of the culprit as its addendum. In the year 2000 the elderly police commissioner emeritus Vittorio D'Aiazzo is working alongside commissioner Sordi, his former employee, as a consultant to the Turin Police Headquarters. They are investigating a series of murders that appear to be the anarchic work of a sadistic serial killer or sacrifices to the devil by one of the sulfurous sects of macabre-obsessed Turin. But they may also, or only, have roots related to the terrorism that had raged in Italy until twenty years earlier and is still dragging on at the end of the millennium. The monster suppresses his victims horrendously by sticking the murder weapon into an ear until it reaches the brain, with lethal results. The investigation touches on private issues and moves forward through a motley group of humanity that is not entirely morally transparent. But it also touches on the political, economic, and social themes typical of the 1970s during the so-called anni di piombo (years of terrorism), when political and private violence normally ended up being mixed with the disappearance, or almost, of the concept of the person and the prevalence of social roles. Vittorio D'Aiazzo's investigation winds its way through the evil fruits of those perverse seeds, amid disturbing conjectures, identity crises, psychological annotations, and reaches its crucial acme in the unsettling final revelation which has as an addendum the death of the commissioner himself, resulting from the discovery of the culprit.
Available since: 07/13/2021.
