The Puppeteer: Commissario Trotti #2

(Paperback)

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Description

The Puppeteer is the follow-up to CWA Dagger-winner Timothy Williams's dazzling crime fiction debut, Converging Parallels (Soho Crime, 2014, available from Turnaround). This tautly-written novel takes us to the depths of a corrupt, scheming Italian society in which bank officials, clergymen, masons, lawyers and, of course, politicians are all suspect of resorting to criminal activity for personal gain. Only the police are deemed trustworthy, and even they are sorely divided by departmental rivalries and jealousies.

Reviews

Praise for The Puppeteer

The dialogue is a joy . . . [a] taut, ingenious novel. Long live Trotti.
Financial Times

Commissario Trotti is clever and tough . . . His investigation is fascinating to an American reader because it offers insights into the Italian power structure, which is far more interesting than it is stable.
Newsday

A reader has to be quick on his mental feet to follow Williams through[The Puppeteer], but the reading is worth the challenge.
Charlaine Harris

A fine novel for those seeking something a little out of the ordinary . . . a phlegmatic, intellectual detective, and a North Italian milieu flavored with oregano, olive oil, left-wing polities and crime . . . The plotting is crisp and the details pungent.
Chicago Sun-Times

Trotti, whose patch is an unnamed small town in northern Italy, is dogged, cynical, and worries about his wife and anorexic daughter. But above all, hes honest in a society and political system in which corruption flourishes.
The Sunday Times

Castaing, Maigret and their colleagues will welcome Piero Trotti to their ranks with pleasure . . . expert dialogue, realistic characterisation and evocative sense of time and place . . . [A] sophisticated thriller.
Irish Times

Trotti is a detective one would be happy to meet again.
Sunday Independent(Ireland)

You don't often get detectives as roundly and palpably portrayed as Timothy Williams's Trotti . . . [The murderer's] true identity is brilliantly concealed by Williams among a cast or characters as memorable and as vulnerable as Trotti himself.
Oxford Times

A first-rate series of procedurals . . . The mouthwatering glimpses of the Italian countryside provide just enough flavor of everyday Italy to make the revelations convincing. The writing is taut and exact and the tensions among characters and between past and present are often subtly drawn.
San Jose Mercury News

Packed with deception, incident and intrigue.
Bolton Evening News

Williams, a gifted storyteller, has created another stupendous mystery.
Publishers Weekly

With Williamss impressively detailed backgrounds and quietly effective narration, the north-Italy milieu remains somberly distinctive so fans of dark-edged, politically textured Euro-mystery will want to keep track of Trottis adventures.
Kirkus Reviews

An interesting combination: Italian history, police systems, a crime and a human, suffering policeman . . . A very good thriller.
Jewish Gazette

A complex, tautly-written thriller.
Woman's World

Filled with offbeat characters. Williams's tense, stylish writing creates another easy-to-read 'whodunit' for mystery fans.
Asheville Citizen Times

Trotti is diligent, honest and smart . . . [His investigation] works out amid realistic backgrounds of family, cities, offices, restaurants, cars, highways, and Italian police procedure.
Ormand Beach News

[The Puppeteers] storyline is involved, revolving around an Italian society of twisted family loyalties and bureaucratic deceptions. Trotti himself is a creature of single-mindedness and brutal effectiveness, stripping away layers of red tape and exposing a colorful collection of suspects. Solid genre fane.
PLR

[Williams's] characters are richly delineated and the plot is carried forward in alternating passages of vivid visual storytelling and realistic, oblique, and frequently darkly comic dialogue . . . Don't expect neat resolutions, though. Like Donna Leon, Williams refuses neat endings and portrays even more definitively than Leon the corruption that forecloses justice in Italy.
International Noir Fiction


Praise for the Commissario Piero Trotti series

"A delight.
The Observer, "10 Best Modern European Crime Writers"

"Subtle, tense and gripping.
Val McDermid

Superb.
TheScotsman

Breathtakingly good.
Evening Standard

Wake up and smell the grappa. Big Italy is a chilling education, a scalpel-sharp exploration of Italys body politic. Timothy Williams knows the ABC of corruptionAndreotti, Berlusconi, Craxiand is a convincing and compelling voice.
Ian Rankin

The ageing moody Trotti is a subtle and convincing creation; the other characters are portrayed with depth and sensitivity, and the Italian atmosphere is authentically beguiling. First-rate in every way.
The Times

Simple but stylish . . . [Williams's] plotting [is] impeccable.
Time Out

Fans of dark-edged, politically textured Euro-mystery will want to keep track of Trottis adventures.
Kirkus Reviews

Stylish and excellent. Those who like Dibdin will eat it up.
Lionel Davidson

Williams writes like an angel. He does, but thank Beelzebub, it's a mongrel angel with a bit of fiend about him.
Oxford Times

Trotti himself is perversely lovable; totally dedicated but not without dark, self-deprecating humor.
Booklist

Commissario Trotti is an inspired creation.
Sunday Times

Author Bio

CWA award-winning author Timothy Williams has written five crime novels set in Italy featuring Commissario Piero Trotti, including Converging Parallels, available in Soho Crime's Passport to Crime collection for only $9.99. In 2011, the Observer placed him among the ten best modern European crime novelists. Born in London and educated at St. Andrews, Williams has taught at the universities of Poitiers in France, Bari and Pavia in Italy, and at Jassy in Romania. He has lived in the French West Indies, where he teaches, since 1980.