A crime story ‘junkie’ from the profound “Crime and Punishment” to so bad I won’t mention for fear of libel. Accordingly, I speak from experience about the relative virtues of various crime novels; and Massimo Carlotto’s “At the End of a Dull Day” is really really really excellent. Although, it doesn’t achieve the literary quality of say John Domini’s “A Tomb on the Periphery”; lacking the ‘moral ambiguity’ and ‘sense of destiny’, which defines that great work. Rather, ‘Dull Day’ is more in the pop-culture crime melodrama genre, in line with books such as Frank Lentricchia’s “The Accidental Pallbearer” or Lisa Scottoline’s work. In that category Carlotto demonstrated himself as a truly masterful storyteller – the plot is excellent. Aristotle and the neo-Aristotelian “Chicago Critics”, who thought plot was the essence of dramatic literature, would love this book for the so-not postmodern plot alone. Southern-Italian Americans will find the book of cultural interest. Set in the Veneto there are many culture allusions such as the repeated references to “speaking in dialect” and Padano politics. Also refreshing; except for a couple of southern Mafia characters playing a significant but not prominent narrative role, all the major characters are northern Italian and they are all ‘dirt-bags’. What is truly unusual about the book, and a mark of Carlotto’s creativity; the protagonist is at once despicable and yet sympathetic. This is not a ‘white-hat’ vs. ‘black-hat’ plot. Rather, ‘black-hat’ vs. ‘black-hat’. Also, a special note of appreciation should be made to the translator Anthony Shugaar, who is a prolific translator of (no not Dante – thank you!) Italian high and low-brow works, and did the absolute tour-de-force translation of Salvatore Lupo’s “History of the Mafia”.