White Devil

Written by Domenic Stansberry

Review written by Judith Sullivan

Judith Sullivan is a writer in Leeds, originally from Baltimore. She is working on a crime series set in Paris. Fluent in French, she’s pretty good with English and has conversational Italian and German. She is working to develop her Yorkshire speak.


White Devil
W & N an imprint of Orion Publishing
RRP: £8.99
Released: July 12 2018
PBK

For a book with the word white in the title, this is a very noir book. In all the best ways – sexy, gloomy, nihilistic with as its main character the most fatale of femmes. Literally.

Vicki Wilson Paris should come with a health warning. Over the course of this sprightly, intriguing novel, not only does husband number one Frank Paris die, soon afterwards marito due Paolo Orsini also kicks  the bucket. They are not the only casualties of this black widow’s web, whose trail of destruction is remarkable and international.

Born in California, Victoria lives in Rome with full-time gambler, part-time writer Frank. Occasionally her brother Johnny joins the couple in Rome. While the Parises are supremely indolent, Johnny is a busy fixer for some shady Mafiosi types. He is also obsessively close to Victoria, his half-sister. While incest is hinted at, it is never spelled out, which makes it even creepier.

Victoria is an able bed-hopper, seemingly able to glide from man to man without losing her own heart. While in the US, she sort of did some actress / modelling stuff but otherwise, she has no obvious means of support beyond Frank’s gambling gains. With Paris beaten up by thugs and chucked into a well, Vicki slips into the role of Senator Orsini’s concubine.

Turbulence surrounding the 2013 abdication of Pope Benedict XVI (Devil came out several years ago in the US) swirls as shady and smoky as the signals indicating the selection of the current Pontiff. The smoke signals are clear for Vicki and Paolo as well and they hightail it to Malibu with faithful puppy Johnny absent but not forgotten.

Things get very weird in California – herbalists, B-movie stars and contested wills all crop up. On Paolo’s demise, Vicki again flees this time to unnamed South American country accompanied by a young man named Dazio. The denouement that plays out in much lesser digs than the earlier bits.

The ending, as one might expect, is not pretty.

White Devil is based on a 400-year-old play of the same name by John Webster. But there is nothing derivative about the creepy-crawly nastiness and cynicism of this update. Stansberry’s mother is Italian and the author’s love-hate relationship with the nation that gave us Prosecco, pasta, pesto and Don Corleone is evident. Narrator Vicki is a cypher and also an archetype. The ultimate femme fatale, she emits loneliness and sadness that make her as compelling an anti-heroine as she is prospective bride.

This book ramps up the tension and it also slithers through the reader’s brain as softly as the silk garments Vicki so loves to wear. This is my first Stansberry read and I shall be seeking out his earlier work.



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