Un caso come gli altri

"Exactly that, but with a coup de theatre at the end which I won’t divulge here. Pasquale Ruju is extremely famous in Italy because he is a writer for comics and graphic novels and it’s fascinating to see how this translates to a different medium – that of the novel. He has written a compelling narrative which takes as its protagonists two women, one of whom belongs to the ’Ndrangheta [the Calabrian mafia], an organization which is unique, unlike the Camorra or other criminal organizations. Ruju tells the story of how this woman fell in love with a man who revealed himself to be very different to that which he first appeared, and we get the whole arc of her life as she moves through this totally oppressive system, and in the end liberates herself from it, in one way or another. She frees herself from this situation by paying a truly high price. The construction of the characters is very realistic. There’s also the fact that it’s pretty hard to find novels about the ’Ndrangheta – there aren’t very many Calabrese writers and there doesn’t seem to be much interest in the ’Ndrangheta. Ruju, even though he’s Sardinian, lives in Turin—Turin being a city that is historically, since 1974, very infiltrated by the ’Ndrangheta—so it was possible for him to conduct in-depth investigations into the workings of the ’Ndrangheta for the purposes of this novel. He’s an extraordinary man. His writing is highly visual – it’s clear that when he wrote this, the graphic world was ever-present to him; he writes scenes so that the reader can really see them. I know that he’s working on the follow up novel to this one and I can’t wait to read it. It is. I’m very involved in the scouting of women writers for this very reason, because the female point of view is essential, in that whenever we do find women writing noir, they always bring something more to the table. The female perspective on criminality, on good and evil in general, is absolutely fascinating. Giorgia Lepore, a writer from Puglia, is one to watch – her first novel is forthcoming. But, yes, it’s vitally important that we bring more women into noir."