‘Mafia’ is an Arab word that means ‘hidden place’ or ‘meeting in a hidden place’. In Sicily it is used to denote ‘a criminal association with the aim of illegally enriching its members...that places itself as an intermediary between private property and labour; a parasitical intermediary of course, acting through the use of violence.’


That is how the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia defines the Mafia and in this novel he produces a ‘fictional illustration’ of its nature. Against the background of an inert island village two ways of thinking, two apparently irreconcilable Italys confront each other: that of the local Mafia thug which declares itself through murder, and the Northern way of the carabiniere captain Bellodi, a former partisan and a convinced democrat. Given the task of investigating the fatal shooting of Salvatore Colasbena, the captain tries to take the chain of responsibility right up to the local mafia boss, Mariano Arena, and to arrest him as the originator of the crime. During his interrogation of Arena the captain’s loyalty to the state and its laws square up against the distorted logic of the mafioso and the veil is lifted from a criminal phenomenon that has its origins in Sicilian history. Political forces protect Arena from all accusations but in the end this doesn’t break the moral resistance of the captain, who is left with a clearer and more sensitive vision of Sicilian problems.


Presented as a detective story, the book gets its power from the important question: Why is there a Mafia? Why does a man become a mafioso? From within contemporary Sicily itself, afflicted by what seems to be an inescapable curse, comes the voice of an urbane and responsible writer.

‘Bellodi told the story of a medical officer in a Sicilian prison who took it into his head, quite rightly, to remove from the mafia convicts the privilege of residing permanently in the prison hospital. The prison was full of genuine sick cases, even some tubercular ones, living in cells and common dormitories, while these mafia chiefs, bursting with health, occupied the sick-bay in order to enjoy better treatment. The doctor gave orders for them to be sent back to their ordinary quarters and for the sick to be admitted to the hospital. The doctor’s instructions were disregarded by both warders and governor. The doctor wrote to the Ministry. The next thing that happened was that one night he was summoned to the prison where, he was told, a prisoner had urgent need of him. He went. At one point in the prison he suddenly found himself alone among the convicts; and he was then beaten up with skill and precision by the mafia chiefs. The warders noticed nothing.’ p119