Joseph Roth
Confessione di un assassino

Make yourselves comfortable in your armchair; it won't be a very long read, perhaps one hundred and fifty pages. I recommend keeping a bottle of grappa by your side, white and not too "constructed." It will keep you company as you immediately dive into the sick and drunken atmosphere of that shady Parisian dive from the early 1900s where Golubcik, a mysterious ex-spy for the Russian secret police, tells, between one carafe and another of brandy, the cursed story of his life. The natural son of Krapotkin, a wealthy Russian prince, Golubcik tries, unsuccessfully, to have himself recognized as a legitimate son to enjoy his father's luxurious life. Accompanied at crucial moments by Lakatos, a Mephistophelean character who embodies Evil, he will enter the world of espionage and be sent to Paris where he will meet Lucretia, the woman of his life, a frivolous female figure devoted to money and material frivolities. During one night, Golubcik will confess to the few present the terrible double murder he has committed and the terrible violence that his role as a spy led him to commit.

Dark novel, clearly inspired by the great Russian masterpieces (the references to Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" are all too clear), where evil is present and personified by a handsome attractive man who limps strangely (Kaiser Soza from Singer's "The Usual Suspects" springs to mind), where the protagonist seeks to free himself from his remorse and regrets with an extreme yet tardy redemption. Golubcik tells of his personal hell, of that place of pain and anguish that a "fine" devil has set upon him (everyone has a devil circling around them; just don't listen to it).

A simple, engaging and overwhelming read at times, recommended for those who love the atmospheres of 19th-century Russian novels, for those who love power and palace intrigues, for those who adore the compulsive obsessions of criminals, for those who have grown up rooting for the villains in fairy tales. Yet another gem by a vastly underrated author: "Confession of a Murderer" written in '36 by Joseph Roth, in the Olympus of the Twentieth Century, a certainty, a guarantee.