Equal Danger

Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989) was an Italian novelist who wrote detective stories of considerable depth, often involving issues of power and injustice (and the role of the Mafia) in his native Sicily. Equal Danger is one of his best novels, the story of a police detective (Inspector Amerigo Rogas) in a nameless city who is assigned a case involving the murder of various local lawyers and judges. The book has a humorous touch, as the detective’s intellectualism makes him an easy target for his colleagues. But what really elevates the story is the narrative, which features mounting danger as Rogas’s leads take him in a number of uncomfortable directions that implicate the politically powerful. Sciascia called this book “a fable about power anywhere in the world” and his novel becomes one of the great books about politics and bureaucracy more generally.