Buy this book
Books N Bytes participates in affiliate programs including Amazon Associates and Bookshop.org. We may earn a commission when you purchase through our links at no extra cost to you.
Enemy Within is one of Paul Adam's Italian political thrillers, with a journalist protagonist working back through a decades-old murder that has implications for the contemporary corruption investigations that the magistrates of the Mani Pulite era were running. The plot is solid. The Italian-political-system texture is handled with care.
Adam's strengths are the geography and the small institutional observations. The Roman judiciary, the Sicilian small-town politics, the slightly weary cynicism of the Italian press corps in the period, all carry weight. The thriller machinery is competent rather than gripping.
Three stars. Recommended to readers who like Italian political thrillers. Adam's music mysteries are stronger work.
Related reads
If you liked Enemy Within
The Rainaldi Quartet
by Paul Adam
Paul Adam's classical music mystery at its best. Four amateur musicians, a stolen Stradivarius, and a story that takes its setting fully seriously.
Flash Point
by Paul Adam
Flash Point by Paul Adam 2006 review. A Glasgow journalist investigates the death of a young African violinist competing in the Tchaikovsky Competition and stumbles into a missing-instrument scandal.
Killing of the Saints
by Paul Adam
Paul Adam doing the classical music mystery. Violin-makers, contested attributions, and a death at a Cremona auction. A genuine niche done with love.
Sleeper
by Paul Adam
A Paul Adam intelligence thriller. Solid but the second-tier Adam.
The Lincoln Lawyer
by Michael Connelly
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 2005 review. Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, takes a case that pulls him into something larger. The novel that launched a series and a film franchise.
Big Little Lies
by Liane Moriarty
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty 2014 review. Three mothers at an Australian elementary school converge on a kindergarten Trivia Night where someone will die. The contemporary domestic-suspense novel that defined the late-2010s book-club shelf.
More by this author