Reasonable Doubts by Gianrico Carofiglio (2006).
A
legal mystery with maybe 20% of thriller.
The
rest is filled with life, love and Philosophy.
I
know it sounds strange, but it works out so well, I must tell you this:
This
is a wonderful book.
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layers. – Guido Guerrieri. The
main man. One of the top, if not the top, defense lawyer who defends everyone
except pedophile. When he believes in something, he doesn’t give it up and
never afraid of going after it.
He is over 40 now and he feels it
obviously (especially after his break-up with his wife). So these days, he is just trying to keep
it up with his age, you know, things like starting bicycling to courts-room and eating healthy food, etc..
He is possibly the only defense
lawyer in Italy
and probably in the world, who reads/loves poetry and secretly dreaming up
becoming a writer one day.
This book is quite different from
any books I’ve ever read which feature lawyer as a main guy. In this book,
practicing laws is not in the center stage of the storyline. It’s the life of Guido,
that’s most interesting, therefore, most important.
Guido is apparently going through
some kind of mid-life crisis. First, his wife just left him and now he is not
even sure if he has a right job for the rest of his life. And this leads to a
lot of contemplating and self discovery.
Carmelo Tancredi. A good friend of
Guido and a very smart/tough police inspector specializing in hunting down the
worst (rapist, child traffickers, etc.).
Quite an intellectual. He is only
one thesis away from getting Psychology degree (university), but can’t afford
to do it. Too busy busting child pornographer-rings.
A regular looking man with a
“God-given” intuition and “crazy-bull” stubbornness.
He helps Guido a lot by giving
him a proper advice and confident info. Sometime, protection, too. If you are
an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy,
you gotta have a friend like him.
Natsu Kawabata. Ex-model turned high-end
Japanese cuisine chef. A beautiful woman
and Guido’s new lover (?). Yes, he is sleeping with his client’s wife.
Fabio Paolicelli. Natsu’s husband.
He is sentenced 16 yrs in prison
for drug trafficking which, of course, he completely denies. He used to be a
Fascist thug and beat the crap out of Guido when Guido was a 14 yrs old kid.
Guido swears for revenge ever since and now, Fabio is his client behind the bar
and Guido is struggling to contain his anger against him. The only reason Guido
decides to defend him is his beautiful wife. Well, what can he do? His wife
left him months ago, so…
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lace. – A beautiful city of Bari
in the southern part of Italy.
All I can tell you is according to the author, this is a wonderful city with
full of life and judging by his writing, he probably adores this city with
passion.
P
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lot. – 1. Defense lawyer, Guido Guerrieri is asked to
defend Fabio Paolicelli against drug trafficking charge which Fabio of course
claims that he has no involvement with.
2. From the beginning, this is
quite complicated case. For one, the evidence is overwhelmingly stacking
against Fabio.
3. The other, Fabio used to be a
Fascist gang who 25 years ago beat up Guido for nothing more than fun and Guido
still remembers the incident like it happens yesterday, swearing REVENGE!!
4. Things get even more
complicated once Guido starts sleeping with his beautiful Japanese wife, Natsu
(kind of sweat revenge?) but hopelessly falling in love with her without even
telling her about it.
5. Then, things get serious when
Guido finds out his client somehow get mixed up with nasty Drug Gangs.
One really interesting aspect of
this book is that the narrator/hero-Guido talks to himself a lot. Whenever he
talks to someone-his clients or friends or a beautiful woman, what he says and
what he actually thinks is, well,…….let’s just say there is a HUGE GAP between
them. Guido behaves and, very successfully, talks like a top lawyer like he
actually is. But his mind is always wondering around because even if he is
extremely talented/smart and is respected by the both side of the laws, he is
never sure if he is making a right decision.
This kind of uncertainty makes
him venerable yet much more cautious and forces him to prepare even more than
what he has to. Therefore makes him a much better lawyer than anyone around
him.
By
the way, his inner-debates are absolute KILLLER!!
So
incredibly DARK & FUNNY!!
Big
reason why this series is popular in ITALY!!
V
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erdict. – This book is perfectly
balances between Guido’s personal life (love) and professional one (lawyer).
The author perfectly paces the
book with Guido’s love life and solitary and job, yet builds the tension toward
the end so effortlessly, it is no wonder someone decides to go through all the
troubles to bring this book to the other side of the continent (translation
from Italian to English, too).
That
is THE BEST DESITION EVER!!
One
of the best thing ever to come out of Italy, I must say.
As Guido spends almost all of his
spare time, wondering around the city, meeting people, thinking deeply about
the meaning of the life, this book is filled with easy Philosophy and theory of
life.
The
bottom line is: This book is
A
love story supported by a very tight legal thriller with just enough Philosophy
to spice up the story line.
A
WONDERFUL BOOK!!
Please,
do yourself a favour and go get it.
