Guido Guerrieri

3 primary works • 5 total works

Temporary Perfections

by Gianrico Carofiglio

Published 1 January 2011

It all began with an unusual assignment, a job better suited for Marlowe than for counsel for the defence Guido Guerrieri. Could he find new evidence to force the police to reopen their investigation about the disappearance of Manuela, the daughter of a rich couple living in Bari? The stories of Manuela's druggy university friends don't quite add up. Her best friend, Caterina, too beautiful and certainly too young for Guerrieri, is a temptation he doesn't need. While the investigation proceeds, Guido fights his loneliness by talking to the punching bag hanging in his living-room and by walking the streets of Bari late at night, often visiting a colourful bar owned by a former client and ex-prostitute. She somehow provides the clue that explains Manuela's disappearance.

A Fine Line

by Gianrico Carofiglio

Published 7 April 2016

When Judge Larocca is the subject of corruption allegations, Guerrieri goes against his better instincts and takes the case. After all they had been at school and university together. Helped by Annapaola Doria, a motorbike-riding bisexual private detective who keeps a baseball bat to hand for sticky situations, he discovers the judge's links to the mafia. Larocca is blind to the immorality of his actions but Annapaola makes sure that justice is done, perhaps not in the most orthodox way. Of course Guerrieri cannot stop himself from falling for Annapaola's exotic charms. The novel takes the form of a suspenseful legal thriller but it is much more. It is the story of a judge who , to quote Brothers Karamazov, "...lies to himself and listens to his own lies, so gets to the point where he can no longer distinguish the truth, either in himself or around himself." A man always looking to justify his evil and corrupt behaviour, perhaps an apposite metaphor for Italy itself.

The Measure of Time

by Gianrico Carofiglio

Published 18 March 2021

One spring afternoon, defence attorney Guerrieri is confronted with an unexpected spectre from his past. In her youth, Lorenza had been a beautiful and unpredictable girl with dazzling charm. A changed woman faces him in his office that day. The ensuing years have ravaged her appearance and embittered her mind. As if that weren’t enough, her son Jacopo, a small-time delinquent, stands convicted of the first-degree murder of a local drug dealer. Her trial lawyer has died, so, for the appeal, she turns to Guerrieri as her last hope.
Guido is not convinced of the innocence of Lorenza’s son, nor does he have fond memories of the way their relationship ended two decades earlier. Nevertheless, he accepts the case; perhaps to pay a melancholy homage to the ghosts of his youth. His old friend Carmelo Tancredi, a retired police inspector, and his girlfriend, the charming investigator Annapaola Doria are once again by his side. A masterful, compassionate novel, striking a balance between a straightforward trial story –some say the purest distillation of human experience – and the sad notes of time as it passes and exhausts itself.

Reasonable Doubts

by Gianrico Carofiglio

Published 2 July 2007

Guerrieri is asked to handle the appeal of Fabio Paolicelli sentenced to sixteen years for smuggling drugs into Italy. Everything seems stacked against the appeal, not least the fact that Paolicelli initially confessed to the crime. Guerrieri's reluctance to take on the case is intensified by the fact that the accused is not unknown to him. Paolicelli was a notorious neo-Fascist thug. It is only the intervention of Paolicelli's beautiful half-Japanese wife Natsu that finally overcomes Guerrieri's reluctance. When he ends up in bed with her things get really interesting.

Walk in the Dark

by Gianrico Carofiglio

Published 1 February 2010

"Carofiglio writes crisp, ironical novels that are as much love stories and philosophical treatises as they are legal thrillers."--The New Yorker

"Part legal thriller, part insight into a man fighting his own demons. Every character in Carofiglio's fiction has a story to tell and they are always worth hearing. As the author himself is an anti-mafia prosecutor, this powerfully affecting novel benefits from veracity as well as tight writing."--Daily Mail

"A novel as much about human nature and the passage of time as it is about law-breaking. Crisp laconic sentences, subtle shifts in tone, and a seamless translation that should be commended."--The Times Literary Supplement

When Martina accuses her ex-boyfriend, the son of a powerful local judge, of assault and battery, no witnesses can be persuaded to testify on her behalf, and one lawyer after another refuses to represent her. Guido Guerrieri knows the case could bring his legal career to a premature, messy end, but he cannot resist the appeal of an apparently hopeless cause. Nor can he deny an attraction to Sister Claudia, the young woman in charge of the shelter where Martina is living. Claudia shares his love of martial arts and his virulent hatred of injustice.

Gianrico Carofiglio was an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Bari, a port on the coast of Puglia, for many years, and is now a member of the Italian senate. He has sold over 2.5 million books of the Guerrieri series in Italy alone.