The German Client

Italian author Morchio makes his English-language debut with a gripping mystery featuring his Genoa PI, Bacci Pagano. At a hospital where Pagano is waiting for news of a friend’s condition, he’s approached by a German, Kurt Hessen, who has come to Italy to ask Pagano to find his half-brother. Hessen tells Pagano, “I only know that he is the son of an Italian woman named Nicla, who died thirty years ago, and that he could live in the neighborhood of Sestri Ponente,” a suburb of Genoa. Hessen is also the son of Nicla, but his father was a German army officer stationed in occupied Italy who was killed in WWII. Pagano, who has strong ties to Sestri, accepts. The novel smoothly transitions between events that occurred in 1944 and those in the present day, providing readers with a sobering view of the dangers faced by members of the Italian Resistance movement as well as giving a visceral feel of Italy then and now. Morchio skillfully unfurls a poignant story of survival and betrayal. (Feb.)