Black August

A Commissario Trotti Mystery

By: Timothy Williams

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

The fourth book in Timothy Williams' critically acclaimed Commissario Trotti series, originally published in the 1980s.

When a brutally battered corpse with a disfigured face turns out to be an old friend of Commissario Trotti's, he joins the manhunt, despite objections from his superiors. In 2011, Timothy Williams was selected by the UK's Observer as one of the top 10 modern European crime novelists because of his work on this long out-of-print series, which Soho is excited to bring back into print in this attractive new package.

Commissario Trotti of Italy's Polizia di Stato is called to the scene of a brutal murder. Despite the badly disfigured face on the corpse, Trotti recognizes it as schoolteacher Rosanna Belloni, an old friend. His superiors warn him off the case, but Trotti is determined to hunt down the killer. First he must find Rosanna's missing sister, a known drug addict. But the deeper he digs, the more questions he is forced to ask himself. Is a recent, unexplained suicide in the River Po connected with the murder? Where does the discovery of a car dredged up from the Delta fit in?

Faced with a seemingly unsolvable mystery, Trotti must also grapple with obstructive colleagues and the problems arising in his private life.

With its brilliantly realized Italian setting, subtle plotting and fine characterization, Black August is a must-have addition to Timothy Williams's critically acclaimed Trotti series.

©2015 Timothy Williams (P)2015 Recorded Books

Mixed feelings

Didn't feel I needed to have read the three previous books to follow this one, except perhaps for the appearance the Uruguayan character Eva, where I felt there had to have been a previous backstory. As for the story itself, I felt it moved s-l-o-w-l-y at times, so that by the time Trotti confronted the killer I didn't really care much, nor really "get" how he got there, but glad it was over. Not to say that the writing itself is dull, but more that the author's pacing isn't what I'd consider ideal. The book did serve to pass time, with characters who varied enough to keep me from feeling a sense of plodding along. As a matter of fact, at some points the narrator varied the voices so much I thought there may be more than one reader!

Would I read the next (final) story? I doubt it. Would I recommend this one? Perhaps to hardcore Italophiles.

Dark, dark August

What would have made Black August better?

I viable story line

What do you think your next listen will be?

Nothing by this author

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

He did his best with characterisation but it was difficult. I had trouble with his (native?) accent

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Black August?

It just didn't seem to run as a coherent story and I'm not sure that cutting anything would have helped. I struggled through right to the end because I'm an optimist but, alas, there was nothing to grab hold of in this book. None of the characters had any appeal and I certainly had no common ground with any of them.

Any additional comments?

Being an optimist and a romantic I love all the ends to be neatly tied and in this book they weren't. Did his daughter have her baby and was it a boy? Was he just going to walk away from the apparent corruption in both forces? What happened to his goddaughter - did he ever have dinner with her????????? I really hate books that just end as if the author has met his allocated number of words/pages/chapters.