Francesco Recami

I read Recami’s *La Casa di Ringhiera* in one breath (see review on this site), finding it one of the finest noirs in the vast panorama of Italian literature: the felicitous conjunction of a comedy of manners with the pacing typical of the best detective fiction. That is why, as soon as I read the review of *Il mostro del Casoretto*, I rushed out to buy it, anticipating the pleasure I had experien

Amedeo Consonni, the novel's protagonist, has been retired for many years and lives in Milan in a *casa di ringhiera*, built at the beginning of the twentieth century around a rectangular courtyard and now housing twenty flats. It is a «curious microcosm» bearing traces of industrial architecture, today severely deteriorated: crumbling stucco, dilapidated plaster, window frames—traditionally woode