“Massimo Carlotto is more noir than even the toughest American noir.”—Josh Bazell, author of Beat the Reaper

Poisonville is noir par excellence—there’s murder, moral ambiguity, and a less than heroic main character. In this bestselling novel, however, the real killer is not an individual but an entire system.

The heavily industrialized northeast, Italy’s richest region, is undergoing dramatic change. It once drove the nation’s economic boom—a regional superpower, affluent and arrogant, a land that abided only its own rules. But then the factory owners began moving their operations across the border to former Soviet countries where labor was cheap and regulatory bodies all but absent. With the factories closed and the jobs gone, new elements insinuated themselves into the old system, and the Brahmin families of the northeast began employing increasingly violent methods to protect their wealth. Once renowned for its economic might, the region is now known for trafficking every imaginable commodity, media personalities and politicians on the payrolls of oligarchs and mobsters, and its ongoing environmental catastrophe.

Welcome to Poisonville! Here, the young lawyer Francesco, heir to the region’s second richest family, will have to decide between business as usual or a violent rupture with the ways of the past. The wrong choice could cost him his life.

Massimo Carlotto
Massimo Carlotto was born in Padua, Italy. In addition to the many titles in his extremely popular “Alligator” series, he is also the author of The Fugitive, Death’s Dark Abyss, Poisonville, Bandit Love, and At the End of a Dull Day. He is one of Italy’s most popular authors and a major exponent of the Mediterranean Noir novel.

Marco Videtta
Marco Videtta is a well-known screenwriter and the author of several successful Italian television series. Poisonville is his first novel.

• Jan 25 2010
  The Critical Flame: "A high-society noir about murder, globalization and “ecomafia” crimes in Italy"
  
• Dec 15 2009
  International Noir: "A fascinating portrait of contemporary Italy, and further evidence of the multifaceted skills of Carlotto."
  
• Dec 12 2009
  The Globe and Mail: "A noir with a vengeance."
  
• Oct 28 2009
  Time Out Chicago: "The misdeeds of the elite are traceable, investigated and almost always associated with crimes."
  
• Sep 24 2009
  The Austin Chronicle: "The book certainly parallels the American pulp/noir tradition with Carlotto being among the leaders of Europe's vibrant school of Mediterranean noir..."
  
• Sep 1 2009
  Publishers Weekly (starred review): "Northeast Italy’s industrial pollution provides the backdrop for Carlotto (The Goodbye Kiss) and screenwriter Videtta’s outstanding fable of greed, corruption and moral abandonment."