Review of TO EACH HIS OWN
A Hemingway, Sicilian version of the Chandler school of noir ...
Another Sciascia novel … same length (short), similar setting (Sicily), similar themes (the Mafia). A high school teacher gets involved in a hunting “accident” and slowly unravels a plot where friend and foe become increasingly indistinguishable. The book has a Sicilian shrug to it that feels as old and worn as the island itself. The good news is that I have a THIRD Sciascia on deck. It is the same length and I think the joy of this writer is not dissimilar to how I felt when I first encountered Raymond Chandler in my twenties. Each Philip Marlowe novel had, at most, one degree of separation from each other. It did not matter a whit. Like Sciascia, the style fits the subject so well that the plot becomes secondary. The greatest mystery writers, those that will stand the test of time, invariably make plot the least important ingredient.
TO EACH HIS OWN
Leonardo Sciascia
2000 NYRB reissue
176 pages