(Drivebycuriosity) - Sometimes I am in the mood for old fashioned slow paced crime mysteries. "The Disappareance Of Signora Guila" by Piero Chiara belongs to them ( amazon). The novella (just about 100 pages) is set in Italy in the 1950s at Lago di Como, a lake shared by Italy & Switzerland.
The wife of a lawyer had disappeared. The husband asks a befriended "Commissario" for help. This starts a series of events (this is a spoiler free blog).
Being born & raised in post-war Germany I find Italy`s culture in the 1950s rather exotic, at least as it is described in books & movies. Chiara narrates cultural habits and a law structure which seem exotic to me, but also interesting. Italy in the 1950s was apparently very conservative and Catholic. What happened in this fiction might not be possible in any other country.
"The Disappareance" is a kind of a law drama, or is it a farce? Anyway, Chiara tells about sometimes ridiculous relations between lawyer, clients & police. The use of the law - as told in this novella - appears absurd today , but also amusing. And the ending is very unusual.
The book is ok, but I liked another novel by Chiara better: "The Bishops bedroom" (my review ).
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