These Dark Things

March 28, 2011
Capt. Natalia Monte of the Naples' carabinieri, the dedicated and scrupulously honest heroine of poet Weiss's absorbing fiction debut, must find who killed Teresa Steiner, a brilliant graduate student from Germany whose body, viciously stabbed, was discovered in an underground crypt. Natalia and her romantically inclined partner, Sgt. Pino Loriano, briskly interview a galaxy of intriguing and well-defined prime suspects: Teresa's lecherous thesis adviser, whom she rebuffed; a novice monk, also infatuated yet rejected; and Aldo Gambini, head of the local Camorra, which controls gambling, prostitution, garbage haulingâand even the collecting of money from street shrines. Could Teresa, whose thesis centered on the study of street shrines, have been skimming donations? The corruption of the Neapolitan bureaucracy, mirrored by the stench from uncollected garbage in the streets, taints but cannot overcome the vitality of the city. Weiss renders its bustling trattorias and colorful neighborhoods with flair.