First title selected

Ok, ragazzi and ragazze, I think we have come up with a first title. At least on the basis that one of you has started on it and another is about to do so.

We're going for Carlo Emilio Gadda's That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana (pictured).

I have ordered a copy via Waterstones. Although I did initially order it through WH Smith and Play only to find it was out of stock. If it turns out to be too difficult to get, may switch the title.

The plan from here would be to read the book over the next month or so and then post your thoughts here or through Twitter (I am @ginkers).

If anyone wants authoring rights on the blog, so you can post directly, rather than as a comment, let me know and I will set it up.

See you on the Via Merulana...

Benvenuti Giallo fans

A few stray tweets and some late night drunken conversations have come to this - The Giallo Club.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, it is the word the Italians use for mystery/crime fiction. So I thought I would pinch it for here.

The idea is that this blog can be a meeting place for a book club based around detective stories by Italian writers or novels which have Italy as their setting.

Once we have a group together, hopefully we can agree on a first title to be the subject of discussion.

See you all in a late-night bar on the dark side of Florence. Well, at least, that's where I'm going to imagine we meet.

To get the ball rolling, I am looking for nominations for our first book.

Among the authors suggested have been Leonardo Sciascia, Massimo Carlotto, Gianrico Carofiglio, Michael Dibdin's Zen series, Carlo Lucarelli, Andrea Camilleri and Niccolo Ammaniti.

Put a comment below, with impassioned reasons for picking a particular author and/or title and we'll take it from there...