It’s a novel released in the spring, which we recommend for your summer suitcases, whether or not you already know Rocco Schiavone. If you are Italian or Italophile, it must be the case: he has been Antonio Manzini’s recurring hero since 2015. More than a million copies have been sold, adaptation into a television series, his tribulations are a hit. They have the Aosta Valley as their epicenter, which is not the funkiest place in Italy, they are not necessarily extraordinary, but there is Schiavone, with an addictive personality. In his wake, Manzini immerses us in Italian society, its economic and political systems, its historical evolution, its regional differences and disparities, its ancestral and contemporary values.
Corpse of transgender woman
Like its creator, the sub-prefect of police Rocco Schiavone is Roman and proud of it. His transfer to the northwest of the country is a punishment linked to his personality and his methods: ill-mouthed in general, squeaky, insolent, follower of joints and capable of very private and unregulated initiative, Schiavone has only his dog Lupa for true friend. He also converses regularly, inconsolably, with Marina, his dead wife. And he’s addicted to Clarks (shoes), even though they’re not suited to the terrain. This is where the key corpse is foundShadows and dust. It floats in the Dora. “Nobody swims in the Dora.”
Who put a noose around the neck of the transgender woman that no one seems to know? Schiavone will really look into the matter after having let his team of notorious incompetents flounder: it is his response to the untimely change of office imposed on him by his hierarchy, without even warning him. Here he is ex abrupto relegated to a broom cupboard, literally cupboarded. Such an affront is paid for.
The investigation is complex, enriched by a new corpse. And she is pox. Very quickly, Schiavone is threatened with reprisals coming from high spheres, the encouragements to give up multiply. So what? Schavione shoots all over the place, in words anyway, and not just the enemy. Also a colleague (“You dress in shit, you smoke shit, you never eat out, you don’t have a girlfriend anymore, you don’t have a car, no motorcycle, you live in a roommate with another agent to 200 euros per month […]») than his superior (“You, sir, you hide behind a barricade of bullshit and a false sense of duty”), or a traitorous lover (“Life is like a tuna slaughterhouse […] Kiss my ass […] It’s a shame because you fuck well”).
Kick in the balls
At the same time, Schiavone is the only one to give time to Gabriele, his teenage neighbor left to fend for himself by an overworked mother. He teaches him in particular to deal with bullying at school, by kicking him in the balls. “So you absolutely have to give it to him. And strong. The other must no longer get up. […] As if you were taking a penalty. The other falls to the ground. When he’s on the ground, you pretend it’s a ball and you kick him again here, under the chin.” Gabriele turns out, for once, to be a good student. And who watches Gabriele sleep with affection? And Schiavone is the only one who really cares about what happened to Juana Perez, he who objects “you can have a feminine nature stuck in a masculine body” to its leader convinced that “the deep nature, we can never change it!” There is justice in the grumpy misanthrope of Aosta.