Review

(My review on goodreads)

This novel was a rambling mess. It starts with inspector Bordelli and his sidekick Piras investigating the rape and murder of a young boy. They have no clues and no way forward. Since Bordelli has nothing concrete to go on, he spends evenings with his friend Rosa, the ex prostitute, and loses sleep thinking about the women who have passed through his life. He complains about the incessant rain. One evening Rosa surprises him by inviting a tarot card reader to her apartment while Bordelli is there. Naturally the tarot card reader tells him that he will soon meet a beautiful woman.

Soon enough, the incessant rain turns into a devastating flood, and the city of Florence is inundated, with up to 10 feet of water in some areas. Much of the middle portion of the novel describes the devastation and its aftermath, and along the way Bordelli meets a beautiful woman, 30 years younger than him, and he falls in love immediately. And she seems interested. Naturally. It was foretold.

Bordelli stumbles upon the barest scrap of a clue and immediately leaps into action by having the possible suspect watched and followed day and night - with no results. Then, like a bolt out of the blue, Bordelli receives a midnight caller, a representative of state security, who asks him to go immediately to the home of a certain individual and give him a nasty scare. Which Bordelli does. And, by a miracle!, that person is soon discovered to have a connection to the original suspect. Mirabile dictu! And from there all the pieces begin to fall into place.

There are a couple plot twists before the end, but the entire investigation rests on highly improbable coincidences and amazing leaps of speculation. That is not a good basis for a proper mystery novel.

Really nothing about this novel held together. The various plots - the murder mystery, the flood, the beautiful young woman, the Rosa connection, the strangely immature Bordelli - were each linked in some way, but the overall effect is one of artistic chaos.

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