In the Name of Ishmael

by Giuseppe Genna Narrated by Grover Gardner

Overview

Politics, terror, and spellbinding literary gamesmanship are at the heart of this daring fiction debut.

Set in fogbound, wintry Milan, In the Name of Ishmael is the story of a secret cult of assassins and the two detectives who set out to reveal the true identity of Ishmael, the group's heavily protected and enigmatic leader.

Expertly weaving a story from apparently unmatched threads in two separate time periods-mysterious murders, a series of seemingly unconnected assassinations, the accident that killed Princess Diana, a bizarre sadomasochistic secret society, and the death of an Italian press magnate-Genna crafts a chilling and utterly compelling tale of political conspiracy and serial murder.

Editorial Reviews

The New Yorker

This baroque thriller, set in a Milan where mist seems to continually pour from the ground, opens with two apparently unconnected events: the discovery of a murdered child, buried under a war memorial, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962; and, almost four decades later, the shooting of a man in the street on the eve of an international political conference. Chapters shift between the two detectives pursuing the investigations. The tortuous plot -- involving sadomasochistic clubs, fringe sects, and assassins -- hinges on the historical figure of Enrico Mattei, an Italian industrialist who died in a plane crash in 1962 under suspicious circumstances. The author, a poet and journalist, writes with jittery, propulsive energy, and he can stop the reader cold with a single image, as when he describes, at the crash site of Mattei's plane, the unbroken, blood-stained trees.

Kirkus Reviews

Two police investigations—one in 1962, the other in 2001—converge on a sect that may front a political organization threatening Italy and the rest of Europe. A thriller with the name "Ishmael" in its title gives one pause, as, so it happens, does its plot, which centers on a plan to assassinate Henry Kissinger. Kissinger is no de Gaulle, and this Italian author’s US debut is, alas, no The Day of the Jackal or Moby Dick. Genna crosscuts between two storylines, both played out in a dispiriting Milan. The first, set in 1962, follows Inspector David Montorsi as he searches for the murderer of a four-year-old whose mangled body was left at the site of a memorial for WWII partisans. Montorsi soon suspects that his department wants to cover up the incident: his office is searched, then his superiors take him off the case. Working on his own, he teams up with a helpful reporter, who then turns up murdered. Worst of all, Montorsi’s pregnant, adulterous wife is also taken out in one of many scenes that some will find repellent for their psychological, sexual, and physical violence. The second story concerns Inspector Guido Lopez, who, in 2001, tries to head off an assassination of Kissinger. Lopez’s superiors try but fail to keep him away from the case. Numbing his feelings with illicit drugs, Lopez begins to close in on a sect that dins "Ishmael is great" several times too many. Eventually, the two investigations and two inspectors meet up and uncover a plot that’s enough to make a resolute paranoid scoff. Genna, perhaps under Hemingway’s spell, writes terse descriptions of physical actions, which in this case only adds to the general monotony. Like jets in a holding pattern, theplotlines drone on and on.

APR/MAY 04 - AudioFile

The murder of a baby and, 40 years later, an unknown scarred adult prove to be as puzzling to the police as they are to the listener. Both occur in Milan, and the novel bounces from one to the other, usually focusing on the increasingly perplexed detectives trying to solve them. The crimes are the work of Ishmael, but what--or who--is Ishmael? The time shifts occur at climactic moments, a technique that is frustrating at times yet keeps the listener engrossed. Helping, too, is a flawless reading by Grover Gardner, whose pace, nuance, and skill with Italian--and later on with French, German, and Belgian--bespeak an almost native fluency. Evil abounds in this work, including some among the presumed good guys, but then evil may be Ishmael--or vice versa--and Gardner captures everyone’s uncertainty. T.H. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169907032
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	06/25/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged

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