Europe is anxiously awaiting the result of the legislative elections in Italy, scheduled for September 25, which the most radical far right, embodied by the Fratelli d’Italia party, has, according to the polls, a good chance of winning. And she will not be reassured by reading the new thriller – impeccably oiled, precise, mechanical – by the Sardinian writer Piergiorgio Pulixi, Illusion of Evil (Gallmeister, to be published September 1). The author, who will be 40 years old two days after this high-risk national election, traces the design of a transalpine democracy so corrupt and spoiled, destroyed by manipulative media, immobile justice and an absent political class, that citizens are willing to defer to a frightening anonymous avenger, who has decided to right society’s wrongs himself. A strategy of shock through chaos and violence.
soon dubbed “the dentist”, the criminal kidnaps, sequesters and mutilates (at the level of the mouth, it will have been understood) the people whom he considers depraved, themselves agents of authority or simply saved by a failing “system”. When he devoted himself to this atrocious task, the man, protected by a leather mask and made up like an abominable Sganarelle, places the lives of his victim-guilty in the hands of the general public, called to deliberate on their fate. through social networks, where images of misdeeds are obviously disseminated. We shudder as we read, short and greedy, this fable which dissects the dark and contagious power of populist tactics, its success with the crowds, and which recalls the macabre stagings of Daesh: is it because history brilliantly carried out by this masterful author seems more and more realistic as the contemporary world changes? The Illusion of Evil has the air of a prophetic nightmare, which one hopes that putting it into literature will be able to ward off.
frantic pace
To counter the Dentist, public order can almost only count on a duo of honest and inspired investigators, Mara Rais and Eva Croce, two women with souls bruised by their respective pasts. The first is Sardinian, blond, rude, sarcastic, smartly dressed and full of dazzling; the second is Milanese, redheaded, withdrawn, more disciplined (though), dressed rock and endowed with an analytical mind. Thanks in particular to the author’s qualities as a dialogue writer, the police couple fuels the plot at a frantic pace, as was already the case in the first part of their adventures – also to be read -, the island of souls (published in 2021 by Gallmeister, it was released in paperback in June in the Totem collection). New from Illusion of Evil : Rais and Croce are supported in their investigation by Vito Strega, an illustrious, insightful and incidentally handsome criminologist… Less centered on the traditions and culture of the author’s native island than the first act of what is to become a quadrilogy, the illusion of souls Piergiorgio Pulixi’s love for Sardinia continues to transpire. Famous in Italy but still little known in France, the writer, ex-bookseller, has already produced a nice bibliography on the other side of the Alps. We can’t wait for his other works to be translated.
The Illusion of EvilPiergiorgio Pulixi, Gallmeister (Translated from Italian by Anatole Pons-Reumaux), 608 pp, €25.90.