“A miniature masterpiece [by] one of the most distinctive voices in 20th-century European literature.”— From one of modern Italy’s greatest writers come four flawless novellas that combine history and fiction while mapping the treacherous relations between individuals and the state. Whether set amid the paranoia of the fascist past or the criminal and political labyrinths of present-day Italy, the novellas in are thrillers of Kafkaesque moral gravity, beautifully written and relentlessly engrossing. “During the last quarter century, Sciascia has made of his curious Sicilian experience a literature that is not quite like anything else ever done by a European.”—Gore Vidal “Sciascia has claimed a niche in the critical pantheon comparable to [that of] Pirandello and Borges.”— “Combining fiction, historical meditation, philosophy and intellectual detective work . . . these novels [are] a poignant gleam of the elusive gold standard in literature.”— “Our century’s most brilliant writer-detective.”—