The Colombian Mule (The Alligator) - Softcover

"Massimo Carlotto has a history as riveting as any novel."
--Chicago Tribune
"Carlotto is the reigning king of Mediterranean noir."
--The Boston Phoenix
"The best living Italian crime writer."
-- Il Manifesto

-Massimo Carlotto has a history as riveting as any novel.-
--Chicago Tribune
-Carlotto is the reigning king of Mediterranean noir.-
--The Boston Phoenix
-The best living Italian crime writer.-
-- Il Manifesto

Praise for Massimo Carlotto

"Massimo Carlotto has a history as riveting as any novel."
--Chicago Tribune

"Carlotto is the reigning king of Mediterranean noir."
--The Boston Phoenix

"In hardboiled fiction, there is this hardcore Italian guy I suggest: Massimo Carlotto. Tough as fuck."
--Guillermo del Toro, Director

"Carlotto's taut, broody Mediterranean noir is filled with blind corners and savage set pieces. Pellegrini's deeds are unquestionably loathsome, but his witty Machiavellian perspective, amplified by a class rage well attuned to the current Italian zeitgeist, makes you root for him all the same."
--The New Yorker

"The best living Italian crime writer."
--Il Manifesto

"Carlotto [...] provides a machine-gun pace, a jaundiced eye for political corruption and a refreshing absence of anything approaching a moral vision."
--Kirkus Reviews

"[Carlotto's] narration allows gruesome glimpses into an unscrupulous psyche."
--Publishers Weekly

Massimo Carlotto has been called “the reigning king of Mediterranean noir” (Boston Phoenix) and “the best living Italian crime writer” (Il Manifesto). 

In The Colombian Mule, Carlotto brings to riveting life the story of Arías Cuevas, who sets in motion a chain of bloody events when police catch him trying to carry a shipment of La Tía’s cocaine into Italy. The intended recipient of the coke appears to have been art smuggler Nazzareno Corradi. But Corradi has been set up. He hires “the Alligator” to get him out of the mess he’s in. Meanwhile, La Tía, a notoriously ruthless figure in the Colombian drug trade, is determined to move her operation to Italy, where cociane has beome all the rage among the professional classes. There’s only one thing standing in her way: the Alligator.

The Alligator, an ex-con turned investigator, and his two companions, former underworld heavy Baniamino Rossini and Max the Memory, are among Massimo Carlotto’s most vivid noir creations. Together, the three men will wade deep into a criminal world of few scruples, testing their own strict and specific moral code along the way.