Night Bus by
Giampero Rigosi
pbk out January 06
(Bitter Lemon Press)
at £9.99
Pausing only to hint at his theme via a quote from Spain's Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Camilo José Cela (Tom Waits and Paco Taibo II
to follow), Rigosi's edge of the seat roller-coaster thriller wastes
no time getting off the starting blocks.
Francesco is a bus-driver and, as we later learn, a compulsive
gambler of no great skill, whose training in the use of his rear-view
mirrors enables him not only to eye the more attractive female
passengers, and to spot any 'pain in the ass' before they spot him
but also to keep at bay The Bear, his principal creditor. Falling
into none of these categories is a grey-haired man in a herringbone
jacket, to whom Francesco one morning points out the stop for
Bologna's Teatro delle Celebrazione. He is, in fact, an Italian
secret service man looking forward to that night's Michel Petrucciani
concert (was this Petrucciani's last gig before he died?), whilst he
acts as go-between in a clearly shady cash for documents deal
authorised by high figures in the Italian government Leila is an
attractive miniskirted thirty-something, a hooker in all but name,
dragging herself back from the brink of total dissolution by making a
precarious living seducing, then thieving, from her night club pickups
across the city. Guiseppe Garofano is a squarish, bald man, like any
self-respecting man of Bologna, large of appetite, but short of fuse
in his day job as back-up to the sinister hitman, the dyspeptic
Diolaiti.
Then something unplanned and unexpected occurs before the above
exchange can take place, and over the ensuing 300-odd pages, the fate
and ultimate fortune, good and bad, of these five characters (and
more) become inextricably linked. Night Bus is Rigosi's first crime novel, published back in 2000. He
lives in Bologna, a philosophy graduate, ex-bus-driver and a founding
member of that city's Writer's Association. He is a writer of both
straight novels, non-fiction and of several film and TV scripts.
Anticipating his subsequent move into screenwriting, the book is
structured as a series of short, sharp scenes, cleverly varied in
length, cutting between the major characters, moving forward both
narrative and characterisation. The writing is tight, often
funny, well-observed and nicely handled by translator Ann Goldstein.
One minor criticism however: the dialogue whilst usually more than
adequate, lacks the pith and pungency that Westlake and Leonard, the
book's obvious antecedents, might have given it.
The plotting however is above reproach, the ending (in keeping with
that opening Cela quote) philosophically 'European', the pace
relentless and wonderfully sustained over the book's entire length.
It's as satisfying and delicious as a Bolognese amatriciana (see
Garofano's recipe on page 159-160) and with more twists and turns
than the pasta that goes with it.
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Night Bus by
Giampero Rigosi
