Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2003), Paperback, 152 pages
Description
District Attorney Varga is shot dead. Then Judge Sanza is killed. Then Judge Azar. Are these random murders, or part of a conspiracy? Inspector Rogas thinks he might know, but as soon as he makes any progress he is transferred and encouraged to blame the Left. But how committed are the cynical but comfortable Left to revolution, or anything? Who is doing what to whom?
User reviews
LibraryThing member William345
Leonardo Sciascia writes rereadable thrillers, loaded with action and existential angst. There is no one quite like him. In Equal Danger Detective Rogas is put on a case meant to solve the serial killings of a number of judges and district attorneys. Rogas very methodically tracks down his man.
When a fifth man is killed, another DA, Rogas's boss takes him off of the case entirely and assigns him to the Political Section. It is after all 1971 in a state very much like Italy. This is a time of dime-a-dozen revolutionaries, the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse) terrorist faction most famous for the assassination of former Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro, etc.
Detective Rogas is told by his new boss in the Political Section to be somewhere for certain undeclared purposes. He realizes he's been double-crossed when he walks right into a cosy evening gathering of the same revolutionaries he has been told to investigate in the Political Section and their friends, various high-level government ministers. Thus we see the obstacles Rogas is facing. They are systemic. How can one arm of the government be investigating the very people who are friends and acquaintances of high-level ministers? Meanwhile Cres is at large and the murders go on. This is very Sciascia. To take one police problem and to study it until a far larger problem is exposed. The writing is hyper compressed and the story tics by in 119 pages.
There's an almost Nabokovian high style that Sciascia employs that I've never come across in his work before. (I don't think this is a peculiarity of the translation, it's too consistent to be so, though I yield to native Italian speakers on the matter.) Sciascia seems to me a writer of tremendous tonal range, and here he is applying these skills to what on the surface appears to be a rather formulaic detective yarn. It isn't, of course.
My favorite passage comes in the last third of the book. Detective Rogas decides to visit the head of the State Supreme Court, President Riches, whom he believes is or will soon be a target of Cres. Sitting before Riches he expounds upon his theory of Cres's revenge. Cres, Rogas believes, was the victim of judicial error. He was convicted and served five years for an attempted murder of his wife that was staged by her. President Riches will simply not hear it. What follows is his fascinating disquisition on the infallibility of the judiciary. Citing Voltaire's essay "Treatise on Tolerance: On the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas," President Riches comes up with an argument that must be read (and reread) to be believed. His model is the Catholic Church's doctrine of papal infallibility!
Extremely recommended.
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It's a simple operation but with its own peculiar logic. He stakes out the man's house, but his plainclothesmen promptly "lose" the suspect. Rogas speculates that his man, Cres, simply walked away from the house without any knowledge of the stakeout. In other words, Rogas has been countermanded by higher ups who for political reasons wish to pin the crimes on others. When a fifth man is killed, another DA, Rogas's boss takes him off of the case entirely and assigns him to the Political Section. It is after all 1971 in a state very much like Italy. This is a time of dime-a-dozen revolutionaries, the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse) terrorist faction most famous for the assassination of former Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro, etc.
Detective Rogas is told by his new boss in the Political Section to be somewhere for certain undeclared purposes. He realizes he's been double-crossed when he walks right into a cosy evening gathering of the same revolutionaries he has been told to investigate in the Political Section and their friends, various high-level government ministers. Thus we see the obstacles Rogas is facing. They are systemic. How can one arm of the government be investigating the very people who are friends and acquaintances of high-level ministers? Meanwhile Cres is at large and the murders go on. This is very Sciascia. To take one police problem and to study it until a far larger problem is exposed. The writing is hyper compressed and the story tics by in 119 pages.
There's an almost Nabokovian high style that Sciascia employs that I've never come across in his work before. (I don't think this is a peculiarity of the translation, it's too consistent to be so, though I yield to native Italian speakers on the matter.) Sciascia seems to me a writer of tremendous tonal range, and here he is applying these skills to what on the surface appears to be a rather formulaic detective yarn. It isn't, of course.
My favorite passage comes in the last third of the book. Detective Rogas decides to visit the head of the State Supreme Court, President Riches, whom he believes is or will soon be a target of Cres. Sitting before Riches he expounds upon his theory of Cres's revenge. Cres, Rogas believes, was the victim of judicial error. He was convicted and served five years for an attempted murder of his wife that was staged by her. President Riches will simply not hear it. What follows is his fascinating disquisition on the infallibility of the judiciary. Citing Voltaire's essay "Treatise on Tolerance: On the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas," President Riches comes up with an argument that must be read (and reread) to be believed. His model is the Catholic Church's doctrine of papal infallibility!
Extremely recommended.
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LibraryThing member jahjahdub
This is a book to be seen reading, or to say that you have read - whether you enjoy it is a secondary issue. It has an independent publisher (Granta), it is post-modern, it has an author who is both obscure and revered. Best of all, it’s not even Italian; it’s Sicilian.
But if the above make it
He’s good, you see, Sciascia, and he knows what he’s doing. Unfortunately what he does here is slightly frustrating. He has a few other books in translation - I’ll be giving them a try; they’re short too.
But if the above make it
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a hard book to love, it has one major redeeming feature: it is very short. You don’t have to invest much time in it - lucky, or Sciascia’s casual round up and dismissal of his plot, like a millionaire lighting cigars with $100 notes, would be even more annoying.He’s good, you see, Sciascia, and he knows what he’s doing. Unfortunately what he does here is slightly frustrating. He has a few other books in translation - I’ll be giving them a try; they’re short too.
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LibraryThing member Peppuzzo
A simple plot, a parody of a detective story. A policeman is investigating a very simple case. As soon as he feels close to the solution, some extra complication appears, making the case more obscure; again and again, the policeman gets closer to the killer, and every time a new party enters the
This small book has been written in 1972, but only published much later. Sciascia started writing it with a lot of fun, and ended in frustration.
Italy’s situation today is even worse. We have a masonic prime minister, accused of bonds with mafia, convicted for a large set of crimes, unconvictable thanks to a self-written and promulgated law, owning the italian media system. Italy has consistently shown the lowest scores on economic growth, information and freedom of speech, as well as law enforcing among the western civilization.
Today there are bloggers that censor comments in fear of political or even criminal prosecution; there are twitters that deride commentators, and some others that even declare that they do not tweet while they are, in the astonishing silence of public opinion. Only Berlusconi’s death might save Italy from his misery.
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game: mafia, secret services, political parties, church, you name it.This small book has been written in 1972, but only published much later. Sciascia started writing it with a lot of fun, and ended in frustration.
Italy’s situation today is even worse. We have a masonic prime minister, accused of bonds with mafia, convicted for a large set of crimes, unconvictable thanks to a self-written and promulgated law, owning the italian media system. Italy has consistently shown the lowest scores on economic growth, information and freedom of speech, as well as law enforcing among the western civilization.
Today there are bloggers that censor comments in fear of political or even criminal prosecution; there are twitters that deride commentators, and some others that even declare that they do not tweet while they are, in the astonishing silence of public opinion. Only Berlusconi’s death might save Italy from his misery.
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LibraryThing member ecw0647
This was recommended bu a Goodreads friend. (Thanks.) I've been hooked on foreign police procedurals for a while now, Mankell, Leon, Larsson, Turston, Eriksson and some other unspellables from Norway and Sweden. I guess what I really like about them is the sense of grayness and dark. There's a
Equal Danger is representative of the Italian gloom but it's a fable about power that supersedes national boundaries. Rogas, a police detective, in an unidentified country, but clearly patterned on Sicily on the 70's?, has been assigned, against his better judgment, to investigate the serial killing of judges and prosecuting attorneys. His approach is extremely methodical. Rogas, seems to operate almost independently of his chain of command, and outside the corruption of the system.
Rogas is the man of principles, the man without opinions; it's the only way he can stay with his job. His investigation leads him to the top levels of government. He is told to "sort of" drop the case. His boss says in a classic display of bureaucratese, "But right track or wrong,stay on it, stay on it." Rogas is supremely confident, but as the author says, "one can be cleverer than another, not cleverer than all others". The ending came as a shock.
The author, in a note at the end of the book, calls it a fable which he didn't submit to his publisher for two years. His explanation? "I began to write it with amusement, and as I was finishing it, I was no longer amused. " Neither is the reader.You'll also learn about Black Rice.
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gloom, a sense of constant struggle, particularly in the Italian police procedurals, of labyrinthine bureaucracy, the little guy seeking small truths amidst a gigantic, corrupt society. British PP's are civilized, while American PP's (except for the funny ones) have a cauldron of violence just lurking beneath the surface. Enough generalizations.Equal Danger is representative of the Italian gloom but it's a fable about power that supersedes national boundaries. Rogas, a police detective, in an unidentified country, but clearly patterned on Sicily on the 70's?, has been assigned, against his better judgment, to investigate the serial killing of judges and prosecuting attorneys. His approach is extremely methodical. Rogas, seems to operate almost independently of his chain of command, and outside the corruption of the system.
Rogas is the man of principles, the man without opinions; it's the only way he can stay with his job. His investigation leads him to the top levels of government. He is told to "sort of" drop the case. His boss says in a classic display of bureaucratese, "But right track or wrong,stay on it, stay on it." Rogas is supremely confident, but as the author says, "one can be cleverer than another, not cleverer than all others". The ending came as a shock.
The author, in a note at the end of the book, calls it a fable which he didn't submit to his publisher for two years. His explanation? "I began to write it with amusement, and as I was finishing it, I was no longer amused. " Neither is the reader.You'll also learn about Black Rice.
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Language
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
1971
Physical description
152 p.; 8.18 inches
ISBN
1590170628 / 9781590170625