The Colombian mule - Massimo Carlotto

Arias Cuevas sets in motion a chain of bloody events when police catch him trying to carry a shipment of la Ta's cocaine into Italy. The intended recipient of the coke appears to have been art smuggler Nazzareno Corradi. But Corrardi has been set up and through his lawyer hires "the Alligator" to get him out of the mess he's in. Meanwhile, la Ta, a notoriously ruthless figure in the Colombian drug trade, is determined to move her operation to Italy, where cocaine has become all the rage among the professional classes. There's only one thing standing in her way: the Alligator. The Alligator, an ex-con turned investigator, and his two companions, former underworld heavy, Beniamino Rossini, and Max the Memory, a once militant political activist in whom a certain idealism has not faded, are among Massimo Carlotto's most vivid noir creations. They readily demonstrate why Carlotto has been called "the reigning king of Mediterranean noir."

Massimo Carlotto was born in Padua, Italy. In addition to the many titles in his extremely popular "Alligator" series, he is also the author of The Fugitive, Death's Dark Abyss, Poisonville, Bandit Love, and At the End of a Dull Day. One of Italy's most popular authors and a major exponent of the Mediterranean Noir novel, Carlotto has been compared with many of the most important American hardboiled crime writers.