The Mediterranean Crime Novel According to Massimo Carlotto

In Italy, the crime novel is currently thought of as the literature of reality: the only literary form that is capable of providing an accurate picture of today’s social, political, economic, and historical realities.

I belong to a literary current known as “Mediterranean noir,” a sub-genre of crime fiction that has chosen to address the large-scale revolutions that globalization of the world economy has brought to the criminal universe. My novels always recount true stories. Naturally, truth is mixed with fictional elements imposed by the form of the novel itself. The aim is to recount those things that, with the disappearance of real investigative journalism here and abroad, newspapers and television cannot, or will not, recount.

My belief is that crime writers must address the relationships between organized crime and the financial, political and business worlds as realistically as possible, without inventing fairytales about good triumphing over evil or the state triumphing over criminality. Italian readers are no longer interested in such fairytales; they no longer think of the crime novel as simple entertainment, as escapist literature, and they want us, in our novels, to analyze what is happening around them. I have received countless requests from people asking that my character, Marco “The Alligator” Buratti, take up some new case that has aroused their interest. Once, they would have turned to journalists, but nowadays the channels of information are clogged up with morbid domestic misdeeds and reporters have turned their back on large-scale crime, despite the fact that, here in Italy at least, homespun mafias have recently been joined by a vast array of foreign mafias. The existence of Russian, Chinese, Croatian, Romanian, Serbian, and Nigerian mafias can no longer be ignored; they have bases, men, and activities within our borders, and their money laundering activities create links between their organizations and so-called legitimate businesses. Thus, corruption—arguably one of the most devastating evils in Italian society—spreads. By “corruption,” I also mean moral corruption, which runs rampant and provides a context for illegality to flourishes. Tax evasion, illegal labor, unlawful traffic in industrial waste, the systematic violation of federal laws: these activities are no longer the exclusive domain of criminals but involve the country’s ostensibly legitimate economic, financial and political powers.

As a result of these developments, institutional or “official” versions of the truth can no longer be trusted, and it is for this reason that I created The Alligator, an ex blues musician who has served time for a crime he didn’t commit and who, once released from jail, proves useful to defense lawyers working on cases involving the underworld. He is an investigator without a license. Covert. Unofficial. And he is assisted by two very unusual associates: Beniamino Rossini, a smuggler and a thief (based on a real person), and Max Memory, a former member of the revolutionary leftwing. All three characters live outside the law, and are thus independent of corrupt institutional truths.

At times, my books can be difficult to read: they are confrontational; they can provoke discomfort and concern. But, generally, these feelings serve as a catalyst for debate, which is one of the primary goals of a literary genre that has chosen to dig into the dark corners of our society. The classic police novel in which a reassuring finale tidies up the social chaos provoked by crime has had its day. Today, people who want to believe in fairytales watch television, which is full of programs in which evil is vanquished. But people who want to remain in touch with reality, who feel betrayed by their political leaders and the lies inherent in official truths, turn to our novels, where they can find stories that are the fruit of lengthy research and where the difference between good and evil is increasingly subtle.

Massimo Carlotto has been described as “the reigning king of Mediterranean noir” (Boston Phoenix), “more noir than even the toughest American noir” (Josh Bazell, author of Beat the Reaper), “about as gritty as they come” (The New York Times), and “the best living Italian crime writer” (Il Manifesto). He is the author of over fifteen novels and The Fugitive, about his years on the run after being accused of a crime he did not commit. He is widely considered Italy’s most important living crime writer and is a major exponent of the Mediterranean noir movement. His new novel is Bandit Love.

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