(Reviewed by JD Jung)
“If Germans and fascists don’t shoot us, Americans bomb us.”
Private Investigator Bacci Pagano doesn’t have an easy relationship with the past. He grew up poor as his mother worked in a cigar factory and his father was a communist laborer. So, when Professor Hessen came to him for help, Bacci was more than hesitant.
Though Hessen was born in Genoa, he was raised by his aunt in Germany. His father was a German officer during the occupation of Italy and was killed in 1944. He heard that his birth mother remained in Italy and eventually married and had a child who would have been a few years younger than him. He never met his half-brother, nor did he know his name. Since Hessen was dying, he told Pagano that he wanted to leave his brother an inheritance of three million Euros. However, the only thing that enticed Pagano was the generous advance that he offered him.
Unfortunately, Hessen doesn’t give him much to go on. Pagano must search those key members of the PAG (Patriotic Action Group) of the Italian Resistance who are still alive, even though they would be in their eighties or nineties. Pagano is reminded of his city’s past which contributes to his emotional insecurities.
The German Client takes us back and forth between 1944 in Sestri, the heart of the Genoese Resistance, and the current day, chapter by chapter. I found myself looking forward to the WWII chapters, as I became invested in the characters and their stories. Author Bruno Morchio succeeds in painting the dark mood of Italy during that time. Eventually, we catch up with Pagano –or the other way around—and we come to a shocking but satisfying ending. Actually, it’s not really the conclusion that I found to be the most staggering, but the culmination of events that happened to the characters in 1944 with all of the lies and betrayal.
Though this is a novel, author Bruno Morchio acknowledges that the names of some of the partisan fighters did exist and certain monumental 1944 events did actually occur.
This enticing story—as well as its complex characters and fascinating historical perspective—will surely appeal to fans of both historical and contemporary fiction. I hope more in the Bacci Pagano series will be translated into English.
