Night Bus

Giampiero Rigosi's Night Bus is about two rootless characters and seedy Bologna. Leila is thirty-ish, pretty, a hunter of men's wallets (she picks up her marks, drugs them and absconds with their money). Francesco is a bus-driver with a gambling addiction. There is a politician who is being blackmailed and who has arranged for payment to be made in return for the incriminating document. There are secret service agents, no better than thugs, who are after the blackmailers so that they can make case against the politician. Another agent, slightly better than a thug, works for the politician, and wants to ensure a smooth transfer with the blackmailers. Leila unknowingly gets her hand on the documents after seducing one of the blackmailers. Meanwhile Francesco is being chased by a giant of a man to repay his gambling debts. The disparate story-lines, written in staccato fashion, serve very well to maintain tension, and do converge in a collection of set-pieces that are both hair-raising and funny. Rigosi has a considerable affection for Quentin Tarantino, I guess, evident both in the action-film-script-like prose and in surreal touches of humour (e.g., the secret service thugs take a break from violence to make pasta). Good stuff.

This is a hilarious, black thriller that contains non-stop excitement from beginning to end. And it so so funny. Francesco and Leila meet in a non cute way, and then find themselves pursued by just every cop and bad guy in Bologna, Italy. The story jumps from one character's vantage point to another throughout the novel. Keeping alive is a major task for almost the entire cast of characters, and a lot of folks just don't make it through to the end. Everybody is trying to get their hands on a big hunk of money, and there is a secret document involved. This book is so hysterically funny that you will think there is something wrong with you as you laugh yourself silly when someone gets tortured or killed. Francesco and Leila continually escape the clutches of their pursuers, although every time they get trapped you wonder how they will get themselves out of their current dilemma. Like the time they are confronted with a very bad guy with a big gun in his hand. This seems like the end of the line for our charming couple, but all of a sudden the bad guy is overwhelmed by a sudden, severe attack of diarrhea. And on it goes. This would make an outstanding movie. I just have never read a thriller like this before. It's a totally different plot, and you just can't put the book down. One other reviewer of this novel stated that he didn't like it, and gave up reading it after a few pages. Here's probably the reason for that. In the first chapter the action skips paragraph by paragraph to different characters in the novel, but once you get through this expository material (by about page 30 or so) your initial confusion vanishes, and the fun begins.

I won't go into all the details of this wonderful book. Suffice it to say that if it were a movie it would be a Robert Altman affair - various lives which keep intersecting either by accident or mistake, often with disastrous results. The characters are "real" people and we find ourselves squirming to be in their shoes. A must read!

In 1993 Bologna hustler Leila makes her living by picking up pathetic males in bars. Her modus operendi is to take these Romeos to their apartment, have sex to "soften" them, then drugging them, and rob them. Her latest hapless mark is Andrea Fabbri, who thinks he picks up Leila; after "softening" him, Leila drugs him before stealing his wallet. However, Andrea's wallet contains an interesting document that is the key to political blackmail. Now it seems as if everyone in Bologna is after her from the secret service thugs to Bear the debt collector and the police. Leila finds an ally in bus driver Francesco, as he too is on the lam from the Bear. Together they must dodge the spooks, the cops, but mostly the Bear. The key to this delightful translation of a fine Italian thriller is that the cast seems real and likable even the enforcer Bear. The story line is action packed as the hustler and her gambling addicted partner struggle to survive and find a way to outfox their various adversaries; of course Leila would also like to make several euros out of what she holds. Giampiero Rigosi provides a fun tale that in some ways will remind the audience of the zaniness of Get Shorty. Harriet Klausner