Sbagliando s'impera

Pavone, Chris (2012). The Expats. New York: Crown. 2012. ISBN 9780571279180. Pagine 336. 7,80 €

amazon.com

Chi conosce la città del Lussemburgo – e io, ahimè, la conosco piuttosto bene per una frequentazione ormai trentennale – sa che stiamo parlando di una delle città meno eccitanti e più tranquille del vecchio continente e che, quindi, l’idea di ambientarvi un romanzo di spionaggio pare abbastanza improbabile.

Chris Pavone lo fa, e per essere un romanzo di debutto è piuttosto ben scritto e ben costruito. E, ve lo passo confermare, Pavone conosce bene le strade, le case e le tipologie di persone di cui narra.

Essendo un romanzo di spionaggio, non posso raccontarvi nulla.

***

Qualche citazione. Il riferimento è come di consueto alle posizioni sul Kindle:

Nobody dreams of living in Luxembourg. [215]

[…] Social engineering. This is when you manipulate a person to gain access.”
“How do you do that?”
“All the methods revolve around basically the same principle: making people think you’re on their team, when you’re not.”
Social engineering. That had been Kate’s career. [1267]

[…] many people, at a certain point in their lives, begin to measure time not by their own forward progress but by the ages of their children. [1907]

[…] the treacherous coast road in the Cinque Terre […] [2116: uno dei pochi errori materiali del romanzo – la costiera alle Cinque Terre non c’è]

Kate kept returning to the phrase benefit of the doubt. She should give it to Dexter; he should give it to her. This should be in wedding vows. More important than richer or poorer, sickness and health, have and hold, parting at death. Benefit of the doubt. [2512]

[…] along the broad, fast-moving avenue JFK, surrounded by the glass-and-steel office buildings, the glass-and-steel cars, these different shapes and sizes of containers of human life […] [3755]

If not the entire truth, at least some more of it. [5021]

She knows that one of the most dangerous, self-destructive indulgences is to go around proving how smart you are. It’s the type of thing that gets people shot. [5044]

SPOILER
“The Croatian word niko,” Julia adds, “means nobody.” [4839]
SPOILER