The Measure of Time

by Gianrico Carofiglio, Howard Curtis (Translator)

Overview

"Mr. Carofiglio, drawing on his own professional background, excels at describing everyday legal proceedings in ways that transfix the reader." Wall Street Journal ———The latest in the Guido Guerrieri series. The setting is Bari in Southern Italy. Against his own instincts, defence attorney Guerrieri takes on an appeal against what looks like an unassailable murder conviction. The alleged perpetrator is the son of a former lover. A taught legal thriller and a meditation about the ravages of time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781913394486
Publisher:	Bitter Lemon Press, Ltd
Publication date:	04/27/2021
Series:	Guido Guerrieri Series , #6
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,036,946
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Gianrico Carofiglio is now a full-time novelist. He was previously a member of the Senate in Italy and before that, an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Bari, a port on the coast of Puglia. He has been involved with trials concerning corruption, organized crime and the traffic in human beings. He is a best-selling author of crime novels, literary fiction and recently authored a graphic novel illustrated by his brother.

Howard Curtis lives in Norwich and is a prize-winning translator from Italian and French. He has translated three other Guerrieri novels for Bitter Lemon Press as well as fiction by Flaubert, Luis Sepúlveda, Giorgio Faletti, Puerto Grossi and Georges Simenon.

Editorial Reviews

02/01/2021

At the start of Carofiglio’s sluggish sixth Guido Guerrieri novel (after 2016’s A Fine Line), teacher and aspiring writer Lorenza Delle Foglie calls on the intrepid defense lawyer at his office in Bari, Italy, seeking legal help for her son, who has been convicted of murder. Guerrieri, who had a short-lived relationship with Lorenza 27 years earlier, agrees to take the son’s appeals case, which involved drugs, guns, and organized crime, but the investigative work unearths painful memories and emotions he hasn’t considered in years. Meanwhile, the aging lawyer examines the failures in his life and muses philosophically on an old punching bag he has in his living room (“He takes the punches very calmly. He never reacts. He takes and I give, but he always wins in the end”). The world-weary Guerrieri—contemplating his own mortality while dealing with a woman whose life is filled with unattained dreams and sadness—and long courtroom sequences that lack any intensity make for dull reading. Carofiglio has done better. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A Fine Line is a terrific novel, a legal thriller that is also full of complex meditations on the life of the lawyer and the difficult compromises inherent in any system of criminal justice. A book that is intensely rewarding at many levels.” Scott Turow

“Involuntary Witness raises the standards for mystery fiction. Carofiglio’s deft touch has given us a story that is both literary and gritty…His insights into human nature—good and bad—are breathtaking.” Jeffery Deaver

“The author occupies a niche similar to Erle Stanley Gardner and John Grisham. The genre is flourishing and Carofiglio has endowed his hero with discriminating taste for good food, but none of their relish for brutality. Violence is kept at arm’s length.” Times Literary Supplement

“As exacting and contemplative as any crime writer I can think of. Yet when the Italian defence lawyer isn’t doing something, he is thinking, and what goes on in his doubt-stuffed head is always captivating. “ Washington Post

“ Hard-boiled and sun-dried in equal parts. Where Philip Marlowe would be knocking back bourbon and listening to the snap of fist on the jaw, Guerrieri prefers Sicilian wine and Leonard Cohen. ” Financial Times

“The role of Guerrieri is to take on impossible cases that have little chance of success. His efforts to prove his client’s innocence bring him into dangerous conflict with Mafia interests. Everything a legal thriller should be.” The Times

“Written with brio, humour and skill. Guerrieri is a lawyer who struggles with his own demons as much as with his stressful caseload. It sometimes feels as though he’s the only honest lawyer in Bari.” Daily Mail

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