Una tranquilla provincia criminale

Two words about Oscar Montani's character based mysteries, of which the modern skipper from Viareggio, Corto--nicknamed after the most famous Corto Maltese, the character of the watercolor graphic novelist Hugo Pratt--is the main protagonist: it consists in a series of seven novels. The plot of Una tranquilla provincia criminale A Tranquil Criminal Italian Province in particular is an intriguing collection of episodes proceeding, case by case. Each chapter is a crime story in itself, a novelwith its own beginning and endwhere Corto and his friend Miglietta, newly appointed marshal of the Carabinieri, investigate crimes with irony, insight and passion. The case of an esoteric sacrifice on an eight point Compact Rose (chapter I, The Vitruvian Woman) , the case of an illegal dealer of antiques left with his head smashed-in on his driveway (chapter III, Napoleons Tureens) , the case of a university teacher killed with a 17th century Pendulum (chapter IV, Galileos Pendulum) and the case of a bloody Mayan ghost wandering around in the rooms of a Tuscan museum (chapter V, Kukulkan's Dagger) are all very difficult and particularly engaging, especially if they are supposed to be solved by only two people! Moreover, everything gets complicated when one of the two gets entangled in philosophical and sociological speculations and theories (chapter II, Heideggers Paper Clippings) on crimes committed in provincial areas. Starting from the search for a so-called breakdown and the real submerged motives behind crimes committed in provincial areas, they finish with the final mystery solution. The protagonists even succeed in making different Italian police forces, notoriously always in competition, work together. His work is often full of literary referrals echoing the anti-hero fictional characters of the traditional Italian movies, watercolor-drawn-illustrated literature, crime-thrillers and comic strips so popular in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s, as in the case of Corto' s friend nicknamed Ginko--after the police inspector in Diabolik--another famous comic strip character created by the pen of the Giussani sisters. The main weapon of the author is a delightful ever-present cocktail of irony, sarcasm, human insight and humor. He sets the reader well into the Tuscan scene with its culture of science, art, religion, customs, and cuisine, as well as the social-economic history, all of which naturally flow out of the narration and dialogues of its native characters. The rich dialogues range from the vulgar to the refined, but are always revealing. It all makes for a fast moving entertaining read.