The Colombian Mule

Probably the best living Italian crime writer - Il Manifesto Set in and around Venice, a pacy, witty, crime thriller Alligator - former blues singer and ex convict, now a private detective - finds his job increasingly complicated. No one plays by the old rules any more. When Colombian Arias Cuevas is stopped at the Venice airport with a belly full of cocaine, he has less to fear from prison than from his aunt La Tia: it was her coke he took off with. As La Tia leaves a bloody trail from Bogota to Venice, the police arrest art smuggler Nazzareno Corradi on suspicion of being Cuevas' drug-smuggling contact. But Alligator catches a whiff of injustice. Engaged by Corradi's lawyer to establish his client's innocence, Alligator plunges into a familiar underground world of drug-dealers, prostitution and corrupt officialdom.