A man is shot dead boarding a bus in a Sicilian town square in front of forty people, and by the time the carabinieri arrive nobody saw anything. Captain Bellodi, a northerner and a former partisan, actually investigates — which means construction contracts, a protection racket, and a network reaching up into Rome. Sciascia published it in 1961, when the official position was that the mafia did not exist, and the book is credited with breaking that silence. It’s under a hundred and fifty pages and the interrogation scenes are a masterclass in people saying nothing at length.
The Day Of The Owl