Second in the renowned Marseilles trilogy following Total Chaos, “one of the masterpieces of modern noir” (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post).
This second novel in Izzo’s acclaimed Marseilles trilogy is a touching tribute to the author’s beloved city, in all its color and complexity. Fabio Montale is an unwitting hero in this city of melancholy beauty.
Montale has left a police force marred by corruption, xenophobia, and greed. But getting out is not going to be so easy. When his cousin’s son goes missing, Montale is dragged back onto the mean streets of a violent, crime-infested Marseilles. To discover the truth about the boy’s disappearance, he infiltrates a dangerous underworld of mobsters, religious fanatics, crooked cops, and ordinary people driven to extremes by desperation.
“Noir at its finest.” —The Times Literary Supplement
“Izzo, who died in 2000, is more than adept at noir conventions—gritty light, sudden switches of scene, the pervasive rot of cynicism, which sullies even the best intentions. But what makes his work haunting is his extraordinary ability to convey the tastes and smells of Marseilles, and the way memory and obligation dog every step his hero takes.” —The New Yorker
“Like the best American practitioners in the genre, Izzo refrains from any sugarcoating of the city he depicts or the broken and imperfect men and women who people it.” —Publishers Weekly
“This hard-hitting series captures all the world-weariness of the contemporary European crime novel, but Izzo mixes it with a hero who is as virile as he is burned out.” —Booklist
