{"product_id":"the-second-life-of-inspector-canessa-isbn-9781782276210","title":"The Second Life of Inspector Canessa","description":"\u003cb\u003eFamily secrets, terrorist plots and the return of a legendary cop: a ferociously paced noir thriller from one of Italy's top crime writers, and the second book in Pushkin Press's collaboration with Walter Presents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnnibale Canessa didn't want to go back to his old life. When everything went wrong in 1984, he traded his brutal, exciting career in the Carabinieri for paradise in San Fruttuoso. He started swimming in the bay at dawn and helping his elderly aunt run a small restaurant. His life was calm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut some shattering news pulls him back in - his estranged brother has been found dead; lying beside him, the body of an ex-terrorist, a man Canessa himself caught. Back in Milan, Canessa must pursue old connections and unsolved crimes, which draw him ever deeper into the underworld he thought he'd left behind...\"Cutting deep into the dark underbelly of sunny Milan, Perrone’s pacy and intelligent novel charts the ordeals of an ex Carabiniere pulled back into the world of terrorism, deception and corruption by his estranged brother’s murder.\" -- \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWaterstones\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"[A] choice Italian noir, set in the Mafia wars and the Red Brigades in the Seventies and Eighties.\" -- \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEvening Standard\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The best noir yet on the years of terror in Italy.\" \u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eCorriere della Serra\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"So rich in tones that I'd love to read it again.\"\u003cb\u003e -- \u003ci\u003eAmica\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eRoberto Perrone was born in Rapallo and lives in Milan. As journalist he has written extensively about food, travel and sports. He is the author of several books of fiction and non-fiction, most famously his crime series featuring Annibale Canessa.Prologue\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMany years earlier, many years later\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He felt, rather than saw, the gun in his hands. This was no\u003cbr\u003e dream, but a vivid memory, with the power to tear apart\u003cbr\u003e whatever he was doing at that moment. Once it came over him,\u003cbr\u003e it was all there was. And here it was again.\u003cbr\u003e How could an actual memory break into a dream? He was\u003cbr\u003e sure this only happened to him. And when it did, he had to sit\u003cbr\u003e down or lean against something. Calm down, let the images run\u003cbr\u003e their course, wait for them to stop. That’s what he did this time\u003cbr\u003e too, perching on the edge of the mattress. He could hear soft\u003cbr\u003e snoring from the bed above him. He’d given his place to the latest\u003cbr\u003e arrival – almost begged him to take it.\u003cbr\u003e He breathed and waited in the darkness.\u003cbr\u003e It started with touch, then moved to sight. Everything was clear\u003cbr\u003e in his memory, even though the day was dark and the main colour,\u003cbr\u003e grey. He felt the rough stock of the Tokarev TT-33, a Yugoslavian\u003cbr\u003e pistol with nine rounds.\u003cbr\u003e Gazing down the barrel of the gun, he saw a man holding two\u003cbr\u003e children by the hand, a boy and a girl. He stared at them, knowing\u003cbr\u003e full well what was about to happen. He wasn’t afraid – not\u003cbr\u003e for himself anyway. Looking around, he saw trees, flowerbeds, a\u003cbr\u003e crowded street, the road ahead and cars stuck in traffic on this\u003cbr\u003e winter’s morning. The chaos, crowds, and people – none of this had\u003cbr\u003e ever stopped them. But the children were new. They’d chosen to\u003cbr\u003e strike before the man dropped them off at school. Why? Wouldn’t\u003cbr\u003e it have been better \u003ci\u003eafter\u003c\/i\u003e? That was the one detail he couldn’t see\u003cbr\u003e clearly. Maybe because it belonged to the previous days.\u003cbr\u003e He looked at the gun again. Nothing was happening. Everything\u003cbr\u003e was on hold. It was all down to him. He was supposed to open fire.\u003cbr\u003e He was the leader. In the meantime, the man pushed the girl a few\u003cbr\u003e metres away and she looked shocked, almost hurt by his sudden\u003cbr\u003e behaviour. He couldn’t move the boy, who held on to his hand with\u003cbr\u003e improbable strength, sticking stubbornly at his side. That’s why\u003cbr\u003e he hesitated. He gripped the Tokarev, which was just waiting for\u003cbr\u003e his orders: loyal, reliable, a weapon that had never let him down.\u003cbr\u003e The gun sat still in his hand while he watched the boy, who\u003cbr\u003e wouldn’t let go of his father’s. He felt something sharp – a knife in\u003cbr\u003e his guts – at the scene. It wasn’t just fear in the boy’s eyes: there was\u003cbr\u003e something deeper, something that went beyond familial affection.\u003cbr\u003e This was more than a lifeline chucked to a dinghy from a rescue\u003cbr\u003e boat during a storm. But even if it hadn’t been, he asked himself:\u003cbr\u003e is there anyone I could throw a rope to? He didn’t care about the\u003cbr\u003e man or the boy. It wasn’t pity or emotion he was feeling. He only\u003cbr\u003e cared about that question, so violent it stopped him in his tracks.\u003cbr\u003e His thoughts were drowned out by a gunshot. He turned to his\u003cbr\u003e accomplice, who had just opened fire and he grimaced as if to say:\u003cbr\u003e what are we doing here with our guns in the middle of the road,\u003cbr\u003e while people are screaming and fleeing, and somebody’s called\u003cbr\u003e the police? So he started shooting too, on auto-pilot: one, two,\u003cbr\u003e three times. The man, at first hit only in the arm, now collapsed to\u003cbr\u003e the ground, dragging the boy with him. The boy started sobbing,\u003cbr\u003e but he was unharmed, considering that he was still clinging to his\u003cbr\u003e bullet-riddled dad and covered in his blood. The accomplice was\u003cbr\u003e moving in to finish the man off, when sirens started blaring close\u003cbr\u003e by. He turned back with a nasty grin. ‘He’s croaked.’\u003cbr\u003e He looked at the boy once more, before someone pulled him\u003cbr\u003e away.\u003cbr\u003e A few minutes later, when they’d driven some way from the\u003cbr\u003e shooting, the other man growled: ‘The fuck were you thinkin’,\u003cbr\u003e eh, Pino?’ That Neapolitan accent grated on him like nothing\u003cbr\u003e else in the world.\u003cbr\u003e He didn’t reply. He was thinking, like he would nearly every\u003cbr\u003e day for the next thirty years, of the small hand gripping the larger\u003cbr\u003e one, of the tie that bound them together. Something powerful,\u003cbr\u003e something absolute. Something he would start feeling himself\u003cbr\u003e only many years later, during his life’s second act, on the final\u003cbr\u003e downhill slope.\u003cbr\u003e Dedication. Loyalty.\u003cbr\u003e There: that’s what it was. Having someone you’d never let go\u003cbr\u003e of, someone you’d hold on to tightly. Someone who was special.\u003cbr\u003e Dedication. Loyalty.\u003cbr\u003e For thirty years, that memory had knocked him sideways each\u003cbr\u003e time he mentally reran the details. (He added nothing, omitted\u003cbr\u003e nothing: if he wanted, he’d have been the perfect witness.)\u003cbr\u003e Yet even though it kept coming back, the memory no longer\u003cbr\u003e troubled him.\u003cbr\u003e He’d found the answers he’d been looking for. He could finally\u003cbr\u003e make that phone call.","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305219477733,"sku":"NP9781782276210","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782276210.jpg?v=1767741386","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-second-life-of-inspector-canessa-isbn-9781782276210","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}