My final nomination is:
The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia
This is an Italian book about a murder in a small Sicilian town and the detective who suspects the Mafia. I thought it fit perfectly because you could almost say the motto of the Mafia is that silence is golden, and the detective finds himself against a 'wall of silence', and the preview begins with the random witnesses to the public murder immediately acting like they hadn't witnessed anything. The ebook is not available in the U.S. or Canada despite the fact that it
was available as an ebook in the U.S. and Canada before (Google Play even still has the U.S. ebook preview although you can't buy it). However, it is available as an ebook in the U.K. and Australia and may be available to borrow from your library as an ebook, so should be easy enough to get for anyone with the desire.
Goodreads,
Preview, 136 Pages, 1961, Italy
Quote:
A man is shot dead as he runs to catch the bus in the piazza of a small Sicilian town. Captain Bellodi, the detective on the case, is new to his job and determined to prove himself. Bellodi suspects the Mafia, and his suspicions grow when he finds himself up against an apparently unbreachable wall of silence. A surprise turn puts him on the track of a series of nasty crimes. But all the while Bellodi's investigation is being carefully monitored by a host of observers, near and far. They share a single concern: to keep the truth from coming out.
This short, beautifully paced novel is a mesmerizing description of the Mafia at work.
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