Reasonable Doubts (Guido Guerrieri Series) [Paperback]

This Italian bestseller is the third in Carofiglio's series of crime/legal thrillers featuring lawyer Guido Guerrieri. The simple story is set in the somewhat grim eastern port of Bari (yes, I've been there and don't care to return), where the 40ish private attorney plies his trade while fending off a midlife crisis. One day, not long after being dumped by his girlfriend, he is retained by a convicted drug smuggler to represent him in his appeal case. Coming back from a vacation in Montenegro, the man's car was searched, and 40 kilos of cocaine was found, leading to a sixteen year sentence. However, he claims to have confessed only in order to keep his half-Japanese wife out of jail, and disavows any prior knowledge of the drugs.

The story then unfolds relatively straightforwardly, as Guerrieri examines the details of the original case and does a little digging with the unofficial help of a few old acquaintances. As in many European crime novels, the hero/protagonist is somewhat of a loner, and spends a good portion of the book drifting around the streets of the city (by bike!) ruminating on his empty life, eating, and drinking. Adding to Guerrieri's woes is his self-loathing when he falls all too easily into bed with his client's exotically beautiful wife. A further complication is the lawyer's secret past with his client -- as a teen, the client was a fascist thug who was part of a gang who assaulted Guerrieri, an event the client doesn't appear to recall. These latter two elements don't add a great deal to the story, especially the teenage connection, which leads nowhere and ultimately serves little purpose. Yet despite the relatively unoriginal plotline, there's a certain tone to the story that makes it quite compelling. Definitely not a great book, but good enough to make me want to go back and read Guerrieri's earlier cases (Involuntary Witness, A Walk in the Dark).

Reasonable Doubts is the third Guido Guerrieri novel from Carofiglio, and, pleasingly, is every bit as good as the first two. The novel begins with Guerrieri being asked to tackle the appeal of Fabio Paolicelli, who has been sentenced to 16 years after a large quantity of drugs was found in his car on re-entry into the country. Paolicelli has a past as a neo-Fascist, and also initially confessed to the crime - though he later claims this was only in order to stop the police detaining his wife as well. Guerrieri is initially reluctant to take on the case: he and the defendant were involved in an incident in their youth which still leaves Guido bitter. However, Paolicelli seems not this specific incident from his violent past, and eventually, after a visit from his beautiful wife, Guerrieri starts working on the case, despite his best instincts and his previous resolution not to.

I think these snappy legal thrillers of Carofiglio's are almost certainly the best series being published by Bitter Lemon Press. They have intelligent and gripping qualities that make them stand out from the pack. They're short, focused, powerful, and humane. I wish there were more of them.

Reasonable Doubts may not be better than A Walk in the Dark (it's not quite as brave, plot-wise), but it's certainly just as good, and both are a little more polished than the first. There are three standout elements: the breezy, clear way Carofiglio conveys Italian legal procedure, the philosophical and moral tusslings, and the protagonist, Guerrieri, who this time around is a good man aware that he's doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Carofiglio's portrayal of his protagonist's occupational and moral conflicts is also done superbly well, initially. However, it does sort of drop off towards the second half (when the plot necessarily takes over), and less is made of the past meeting between lawyer and defendant than it perhaps could have been. It's a plot thread I might have liked to see more of. However, that being said, Carofiglio is a writer who seems to prefer intelligent and telling pen-and-ink lines than detail and exploration, leaving the reader to do some work, and that's where a lot of the impressive pace comes from.

Carofiglio is a writer with a wonderful eye for grey areas, moral conflicts and conundrums, and the resulting muddle of human motives, and through these he teases out the admirable character of his protagonist. He has real depth, real nuance, and displays the realistic complex web of human behaviour. (Though, while his protagonist has real depth and character, Carofiglio doesn't really spend the time to invest his relationships with other characters with similar depth, and the books have a heavy protagonist-centric feel, though this in itself is not a bad thing.) His legal endeavours on behalf of his client are engaging and gripping, and seem to have as much verisimilitude as any writer of legal thrillers currently at work.

In short, Carofiglio writes intelligent, gripping yet parsimoniously philosophical thrillers with an immensely appealing lead character, and Reasonable Doubts is another of these. They deserve to sell in very large numbers indeed.

This was a superb read. Guido Guerrieri, a defence counsel, is asked to revisit the case of man sentenced to a long term in prison for drug-smuggling.

The legal tale itself is not complex (the book is only 250 pages long), but it is so wonderfully written and has been very well-translated. Guido is a slightly flawed character, but we empathize with him from the outset. And Carofiglio delivers insights brilliantly with his rich writing.

While the legalese will likely not test readers looking for some complexity, it would be very difficult to come away, having read this book, with anything other than a great deal of satisfaction. I have kept this review short as I need to rush off and order the two prequels!