The Deliverance of Evil

by Roberto Costantini, N.S. Thompson (Translator)

Overview

On July 11, 1982, Elisa Sordi was beautiful. Commissario Michele Balistreri was fearless. Italy was victorious.

A killer was waiting . . .

On July 9, 2006, with Sordi's case twenty-four years cold, and Balistreri haunted by guilt and regret, Italian victory returned. And so did Sordi's killer . . .

But this time Michele Balistreri would be ready. This time he would fear no evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623650032
Publisher:	Quercus
Publication date:	02/11/2014
Series:	A Commissario Balistreri Mystery
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Roberto Costantini was born to Italian parents in Libya, where he spent the first eighteen years of his life. He was educated as a mechanical engineer, and also earned an MBA from Stanford University. After a thirty-year career working for American companies in many different countries, he is now a manager of the LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, where he also teaches Leadership and Negotiation in the MBA program. The Deliverance of Evil is his first novel and the first in a planned trilogy, the second of which will focus on Michele Balistreri's adolescence in Libya during the rise of Gaddafi.

From the Hardcover edition.

Read an Excerpt

On the referee’s final whistle, tens of thousands were already in the streets. In a few minutes the traffic was jammed solid, people sitting on car roofs shouting with joy, waving flags, sounding air horns, and beating drums. Columns of red, white, and green smoke were everywhere; the night was painted with the national colors.

Amid this deafening racket, the telephone rang. While Angelo went to answer it, I had an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. Alberto looked at me.

“If she hasn’t showed up, you’d better get over there right away.”

His tone was calm, but forceful, leaving no room for argument. It was the same tone my father used when I was little. You must learn to be more responsible, Michele.

“The cardinal says we have to get back there with the office keys.”

Angelo was less drunk now, and more worried.

It was no longer possible to go in the car with the uproar unleashed on the streets, but the complex was fairly close by, so we walked through the celebrating crowds, pushed and shoved by everyone and pushing and shoving everyone back in turn. It was a ridiculous situation: in the middle of the most unbridled joy, there we were like two drunken branches battered left and right in the wind.

It took us twenty minutes. I was in a state of near delirium about the glorious victory and the probable hook-up with Cristiana. The thought of Elisa only crept in every once in a while.
Cardinal Alessandrini and Elisa’s mother were waiting for us. She looked hopeful. We went straight to Building B. Elisa’s window was closed, though the flower still sat on the windowsill. Alessandrini was very tense; Angelo was white as a sheet. The office door was double-locked, as it was supposed to be. Angelo’s hand trembled from tension and alcohol as he opened it. I told everyone to stay out, but the cardinal objected.

Reading Group Guide

READING GROUP GUIDE 

THE DELIVERANCE OF EVIL sets a classic, complex whodunit murder mystery against a unique backdrop: modern-day Italy. Italy is one of the most politically volatile places in Western Europe today, with a difficult combination of corrupt government, socially ingrained racism and sexism, and a close relationship with the Vatican. Roberto Costantini uses a compelling crime narrative to illustrate the realities of Italian life today. 

1. Discuss Italy’s two World Cup victories and their connections to the events and issues in THE DELIVERANCE OF EVIL. 

2. Michele Balistreri says, “things change around us, but not inside us.” What is your opinion of Balistreri’s morals and character in 1982? What about in 2006? How has time changed him, and how has time failed to change him? 

3. What do you learn about Italian aristocracy and its relevance today from Manfredi and his family? What aristocratic privileges do they still enjoy? 

4. Does being female help or hinder Linda Nardi’s work as a journalist, both in general and in her work on the murder story she is chasing with Balistreri? 

5. Does THE DELIVERANCE OF EVIL seem to be forgiving or indicting of the Catholic Church? Does Cardinal Alessandrini seem to represent the church as a whole, or does Roberto Costantini present him as an isolated case? 

6. Are any of the characters in THE DELIVERANCE OF EVIL completely “good” or completely “bad?” Did you ever find yourself disliking the supposed heroes or sympathizing with the supposed villains? 

7. Based on THE DELIVERANCE OF EVIL, do you think the future of race relations in Italy is bright or bleak? Why? 

8. Discuss the different standards of law and justice that are at odds in this novel — for example, Italian law vs. Vatican law vs. Divine law.
 
9. Looking at Roberto Costantini’s depiction of Italy in 1982, where do you see the “seeds” of what transpired (socio-economically) over the next decades to create the Italy of 2006 portrayed in the novel? For example, what roles did racism and sexism, as well as turmoil within the Vatican, play? 

10. What does the character Colajacono tell us about the realities of police corruption in Italy today? Do you think his fate in the novel is deserved?

Editorial Reviews

10/15/2013
May 1982. Italy has just won the World Cup. During the night of celebration, a young woman, the niece of the powerful Cardinal Alessandrini and neighbor to a monarchist senator, is murdered. The police captain in charge of the investigation, Michele Balistreri, is a brash womanizer who botches the case. Twenty-four years later, with Italy again on the brink of a World Cup victory, someone with ties to the victim has begun killing young women, marking each with a different letter of the alphabet. An older, chastened Balistreri leads his team of deputies as they try to solve a case that results in the deaths of nearly a dozen individuals and entwines Italian politics—particularly the issue of immigration—with human failings, especially the desire for vengeance. VERDICT A strong start, with an absorbing depiction of the arrogant Balistreri, leads by midpoint to a less than engaging muddle with far too many pawns on the board. Near the end, the disparate threads begin to take shape as a spider's web, but by then many readers may have abandoned the book. This first entry in a projected trilogy is recommended for those who don't mind keeping a chart of characters and who enjoy elaborate puzzles. [With a 150,000-copy first printing.]—Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Library Journal

12/02/2013
On the eve of Italy’s 1982 World Cup victory—the first of two national triumphs 24 years apart that bookend this commanding debut thriller, the first of a trilogy—Roman police commissario Michele Balistreri refuses to let the disappearance of ravishing 18-year-old Elisa Sordi, one of his best friend’s colleagues, derail plans for a night of drunken revelry. Days later, the discovery of Elisa’s tortured body on the banks of the Tiber will be but the start of a string of murders that, decades later, will endanger some of those closest to him—as well as the stability of the Italian government itself. Costantini spins a politically charged, Machiavellian tale of fiendish complexity that is longer and knottier than necessary. But the book’s underlying psychology—which, in an effort to explain the genesis of the kind of monstrous evil at the story’s heart, veers disturbingly close to blaming the victim—will likely be more problematic for some readers. Announced first printing of 150,000. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

'[A] passionate portrayal of a corrupt and criminal Italy, from seedy traffickers to the Vatican' The Times.—The Times

'One of those rare novels that brings together the best elements of literature ... and a nonstop thriller that drives readers relentlessly from first page to last' Jeffery Deaver.—Jeffery Deaver

'Utterly compelling' Peter May.—Peter May

From the Publisher

2014-01-09
A long, complex crime novel that moves from savage murder to the political and social realities of contemporary Italy. Debut novelist Costantini's book appeared in his home country of Italy in 2011 under the title Tu sei il male ("You Are the Evil"), a somewhat more pointed statement than the "deliverance" of the English version. The evil is broadly distributed. Police captain Michele Balistreri is a young man who has no trouble betraying the neofascists whose cell he has infiltrated, even if he harbors a few neofascist sympathies himself. He's more interested in drinking, smoking and cutting a bella figura on the streets of Rome, and when, just after Italy wins the World Cup in 1982, a young woman turns up brutally murdered, he seems to regard it as an inconvenience. He takes his job infinitely more seriously when, a quarter-century later, Italy again returns to the championship and the bodies start popping up once more. Here, the story, already absorbing (though too long by 100 pages), picks up speed, even though Balistreri doesn't; he's world-weary to the point of exhaustion, cynical and dependent on antidepressants to get him through the day, but he's been suffering from guilt over his earlier callousness and is determined to get the investigation right this time. His inquiry takes him into some unlikely corners, from the Vatican to gypsy encampments, though he keeps circling back to suspicions he has been nursing for years. It helps to have a little knowledge of Italian politics to appreciate some of the subtleties of Costantini's story, as well as a nodding familiarity with the geography of Rome (and the fact, for instance, that the Hotel Hassler is the city's most elite). None of those things are necessary in order to understand the essential nastiness of the bad guy and the moral ambiguities of the supposedly good ones. A promising debut.

Kirkus Reviews