Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Past Is a Foreign Country by Gianrico Carofiglio

The Past Is a Foreign Country by Gianrico Carofiglio

The Past Is a Foreign Country

A Thriller

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Jul 2010, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

An international bestseller and winner of Italy’s prestigious Premio Bancarella prize - an intense psychological thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley. As world-weary Lieutenant Chiti spends sleepless nights hunting for the serial rapist terrorizing his city, trainee lawyer Giorgio is befriended by dangerously charismatic Francesco. Slowly the innocent Giorgio is lured into a corrupt world of beautiful women and casual violence. Then one terrifying night Giorgio is forced to realize just how far he has left his past behind.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"The intertwining plot lines build to a haunting ending." - Publishers Weekly

"[Carofiglio] heightens the tension by jumping back and forth in time, revealing a little but not enough to allow us to relax. As Francesco plays Giorgio, so Carofiglio plays the reader." - Booklist

"Former Mafia prosecutor Carofiglio... packs enough psychological suspense into this tightly woven tale to satisfy readers who crave another Barbara Vine or yearn for Georges Simenon's non-Maigret novels." - Library Journal

"Given his career, no reader will come to Carofiglio expecting a tortured moral relativism. Right and wrong never blur, but he does show with sympathy how isolation and insecurity can lead a biddable youngster down into the dark. ... If his prosecutions begin to match his prose, then the capi of Italian crime have had plenty to worry about of late." - The Independent (UK)

This information about The Past Is a Foreign Country was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Gianrico Carofiglio Author Biography

Photo © Giorgia Carofiglio

Gianrico Carofiglio's books have sold more than five million copies in Italy and have been translated into twenty-seven languages. He is an incredibly charismatic author, having worked for many years as a prosecutor and judge specializing in organized crime and, later, as an Italian senator. He speaks fluent English and his last book was turned into a popular Italian television series.

Other books by Gianrico Carofiglio at BookBrowse
  • Three O'Clock in the Morning jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: There Are Rivers in the Sky
    There Are Rivers in the Sky
    by Elif Shafak
    Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by ...
  • Book Jacket: The Missing Thread
    The Missing Thread
    by Daisy Dunn
    The fabric of ancient history is stitched heavily with stories of dramatic politics, conquest, and ...
  • Book Jacket: Model Home
    Model Home
    by Rivers Solomon
    Rivers Solomon's novel Model Home opens with a chilling and mesmerizing line: "Maybe my mother is ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
The Rose Arbor
by Rhys Bowen
An investigation into a girl's disappearance uncovers a mystery dating back to World War II in a haunting novel of suspense.
Win This Book
Win My Darling Boy

My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

The story of of a man whose son collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.

Enter

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.