The Day of the Owl

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The New York Review Books Classics series brings another excellent writer and storyteller to the attention of a wider audience with the publication of 'The Day of the Owl' by Leonardo Sciascia. 'The Day of the Owl' opens with the murder of an honest Sicilian contractor - on a public street in front of a bus load of commuters as well as a street peddler. When the caribinieri arrive to question the witnesses, they all suffer a failure of memory. When asked `who fired the shots?' the peddler responds with apparent astonishment: "Why, has there been a shooting?" Captain Bellodi takes over the investigation and determines the likely involvement of the Mafia in eliminating a businessman who would not play by their crooked rules. The progress of Bellodi's investigation is intermingled by Sciascia with behind-the-scenes discussions among the Mafiosi and their political and business partners. The greater Bellodi's progress the higher the level of discussion and the greater the anxiety. Bellodi brilliantly attempts to maneuver three participants, each at a higher rung than the one before, in the murder into incriminating one another. If Bellodi obtains the confessions will even that evidence withstand the corruption of a rigged system of justice? Sciascia sweeps the reader along in this brief exciting novel, yet still manages to explore what The Observer called the "silent complicity and self-deception" of Sicilian and Italian society. The reader may also enjoy Sciascia's Equal Danger (New York Review Books Classics), To Each His Own (New York Review Books Classics), and the The Wine-Dark Sea (New York Review Books Classics). Highly recommended.

Leonard Sciascia's Sicily is a dark place, even while it basks under a hot noonday sun. In "The Day of the Owl", Sciascia's native Sicily (he was born in Racalmuto, Sicily in 1921) is a place where there is crime but no punishment, at least no official punishment. Sciascia's Sicily is a place where the code of silence trumps the penal code and where crimes are seen by all and witnessed by none. In Sciascia's Sicily the mafia enjoys such a symbiotic relationship with the local and federal power elite that they are effectively an independent if unacknowledged branch of government. This is not fertile ground for a detective investigating a murder but very fertile ground for a writer such as Sciascia. "Day of the Owl" opens with a murder. A local building contractor is shot down with a sawn-off shotgun as he runs for a bus on Saturday morning. Captain Bellodi, recently arrived from the mainland, is assigned the case. Since a sawn-off shotgun is the typical instrument of mafia-ordered murders Bellodi's inclination is to look for an organized crime link. It doesn't take long for Bellodi to figure out the motive behind the murder, the identity of the murderer, and the identity of the man who ordered the murder. But knowledge alone does not equate to evidence and as the story progresses we see Bellodi painstakingly and diligently obtain the evidence necessary to indict the perpetrators. Bellodi's task is not an easy one. In addition to the wall of silence that meets him as he begins his investigation, his status as a fair-haired mainlander marks him as even more of an outsider. Sciascia takes a multi-layered approach to telling his story. His narrative of the crime and investigation is straightforward, terse, and engaging. At the same time we are provided a glimpse into Sicily through the eyes of a newcomer, Bellodi. Bellodi the pale northerner is transformed during this book. He is at once horrified by the corruption and the code of silence that thwarts him every step of the way. At the same time we see him discover something else in this place that he finds irresistible. This evolution reaches a climax when Bellodi interrogates the mafia Don he believes to be responsible for a cold-blooded killing. There comes a point where the Don refers to Bellodi as a `real man'. There is a lot of meaning invested in that remark and Bellodi is transfixed by it. Bellodi is drawn to Sicily the way someone may be drawn to a dangerous lover. You go into the relationship knowing it will be stormy and dangerous but it is irresistible. I couldn't help but think that Bellodi and "Day of the Owl" was a great vehicle through which Sciascia could explore his own strong feelings for his native place. Leonardo Sciascia's "Day of the Owl" is a fascinating book on many levels. It works as a good piece of detective fiction and also works well as a keen and loving (warts and all) look at life in Sicily in the 1960s. 4.5 stars. Highly recommended. L. Fleisi

A great crime novel with deep social and political roots. It is a captivating crime investigtion novel that opens up a fascinating political and social universe in Sicily with its roots extending to the highest political levels.

Imagine a time before the Sopranos, before the Godfather, and before Mario Puzo. The mafia, particularly in Italy, was virtually virgin territory in literature - no one dared write about it. Leonardo Sciascia (pronounced "Sha-Sha") was one of the first to break the code of silence. In the Day of the Owl -- a short, quick read that provides an excellent snapshot of a Sicilian village in the mid-20th century -- Sciascia transplants to unruly Sicily a northern Italian police inspector who has too much integrity to look the other way when a man is shot dead at dawn in a Siclian piazza. Witnesses quickly disavow that they saw anything at all, but rumors begin to circulate. Our hero, Captain Bellodi, is determined to see the assassin punished. But the closer he gets to the truth, the higher the intervention from "His Excellency" and other well-placed members of society. Sciascia's genius in the Day of the Owl is his subtle description of how the "so-called" mafia manages to keep its operations quiet, ranging from eliminating those who may speak up to using faulty logic to allow for plausible deniability. Can you honestly believe, one mafiosi asks the captain, that an organization so vast, so organized and so powerful can actually exist? Would the police not be able to discover and dismantle such an organization? Would there not be public testimony in court cases? The mafia is clearly just a rumor. Sciascia's characters are strong, particularly fish-out-of-water Bellodi. On leave in his native Parma, Bellodi considers abandoning what he fears is a futile assignment in Sicily. He quickly decides to return, recognizing that Sicily has won him over, just as the Day of the Owl will win over the reader.