Endorsements for The Darkest Winter

“A brutal evocation of a dystopian past, a stunning winter portrait of the debris and human detritus of wartime Bologna, and a gripping and complex trio of murders”
Peter May

“Carlo Lucarelli’s brilliant, if dyspeptic, Comandante De Luca makes a welcome return in this hefty (for a De Luca mystery) prequel to the original trilogy set at the end of the Italian Social Republic, the German puppet state that held out against the Allies until almost the end of the war. It is the unforgiving winter of 1944 in Bologna and De Luca finds himself, as usual, on the wrong side – charged with capturing ‘traitors’ and covering up for fascist thugs – when he must solve the murder of a German soldier or forfeit the lives of ten hostages. Imbued with the cruel compromises of a city on the brink of collapse, immersive, evocative and as opaque as the soot-stained snow, this is historical crime fiction at its finest”
Tom Benjamin

Reviews of The Darkest Winter

“The writing is chilling in its clinical depiction of [De Luca] going about his work, and the drabness of wintertime Bologna is finely drawn… a marvellous novel”
Andrew Rosenheim, Spectator

“This is the most powerful novel in an evocative quartet. This one captures the complex nature of Italy under German occupation. A moving and intelligent social critique that is nonetheless an enjoyable murder mystery. A spellbinding character portrait of the protagonist, a man in the maelstrom, pulled in all directions”
Paul Burke, European Literature Network

“Not just a gripping whodunnit, but also a glimpse into the grim winter where this murder mystery is set. The impact of events in the wider world slowly impinges on what originally feels like an isolated bubble, and the author explores the human cost of it all on the occupied and the occupiers. Frequently dark and harrowing, but also showing that even in the bleakest days of that most bitter winter, whilst often crushed beneath a fascist boot and seemingly destroyed, the seeds of hope still sprouted in the rubble”
Eleanor Swift-Hook, Historical Novel Society