A psychopathic killer of university students is on the loose in Bologna. Rookie detective Grazia Negro is put in charge of this critical investigation, with only her gut instincts to guide her. She gets an unexpected breakthrough when she meets Simone, a young blind man who spends his days at home alone, listening to jazz and to the sounds of the city on his scanner. From the multiple perspectives of the detective, the blind man, and the deranged killer, Lucarelli weaves a gripping thriller.

"Bologna's not like other cities,"Grazia is reminded over and over by her partner.
Left-wing Bologna, site of Europe's first university, comes alive in Lucarelli's explorations of its urban sprawl, its labyrinthine streets, and the haunts of those who live by night — students, revolutionaries, fugitives, and criminals.

"Almost Blue... has a nice punkish flavor in Oonagh Stransky’s translation from the Italian.... it’s a thrill being in that darkened room with Simone as he eavesdrops on the killer.... Eerie." — Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

". . . wonderful . . . the writing through most of the book is tight, the blind man’s view of the world through his ears intensely imagined, and the streets of the solemn city wholly engaging." –Washington Post

"Lucarelli's Italian Noir flows with vivid sensuality: as I read it I could almost hear the sultry saxophone moaning a dim back-alley refrain.... Almost Blue is unique in its explicit use of sound as a central tool in the story's development."
– Jessica L'Esperance, SOMA Magazine

Carlo Lucarelli was born in 1960 in Modena, Italy. One of the most exciting young writers in Europe, he has written eleven novels, all of them noirs. Almost Blue is his top-selling book. Lucarelli hosts a popular TV series that examines unsettling and unsolved crimes and the urban centers in which they occur. He also teaches writing in Torino, sings in a post-punk band, and edits an on-line magazine, Incubatoio 16. Almost Blue and many of his other books have been translated and published in Europe. This is the first to be published in the United States.

World cinema discovered Lucarelli this spring as Almost Blue premiered as a film at the Cannes Film Festival. Lupo Mannaro, the first film with Grazia Negro as a protagonist, has proved enormously popular in Italy since its release last fall. Other Lucarelli tales are currently under contract for forthcoming film and TV project.