Numero Zero
HarperCollins · Paperback · May 17, 2016
“Eco combines his delight in suspense with astute political satire in this brainy, funny, neatly lacerating thriller.” —Booklist 1945, Lake Como.
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- Who it’s for
- A clever, literate read with a satirical edge and enough brainwork to keep pace.
- Genres
- Political Thrillers, Satire, Italian Fiction
- Published
- HarperCollins, May 17, 2016
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Start with this bookAbout this book
“Eco combines his delight in suspense with astute political satire in this brainy, funny, neatly lacerating thriller.” —Booklist 1945, Lake Como. Mussolini and his mistress are captured and shot by local partisans. The precise circumstances of Il Duce’s death remain controversial. 1992, Milan. Colonna, a depressed hack writer, is offered a fee he can’t resist to ghostwrite a book. His subject: a fledgling newspaper, which happens to be financed by a powerful media magnate.
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As Colonna gets to know the team, he learns of the editor’s paranoid theory that Mussolini’s corpse was a body double and part of a wider Fascist plot. It’s the scoop the newspaper desperately needs. The evidence? He’s working on it. It's all there: media hoaxes, Mafiosi, the CIA, the Pentagon, blackmail, love, gossip, and murder. A clash of forces that have shaped Italy since World War II—from Mussolini to Berlusconi. Numero Zero is the work of a master storyteller. “Although Numero Zero takes place in 1992, Eco may as well be describing our current journalistic landscape of hot takes and click bait.” —Los Angeles Times “Readers of Elena Ferrante or Rachel Kushner will likely catch the barbs in [Eco’s] clever absurdities.” —Vulture
Sharp & Studious
A clever, literate read with a satirical edge and enough brainwork to keep pace.
Come here for
- Playful, analytical prose
- Renaissance-adjacent erudition
Expect
- A sustained narrative rhythm
- History, criticism, and mischief in the same room
Where it sits
| Political Thrillers | 42% |
|---|---|
| Italian Fiction | 38% |
| Satire | 37% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Literary Fiction
- Contemporary Romance
- Suspense
- Political Thrillers
Show all 7 publisher categories
- Alternate History
- Crime Fiction
- Satire
- Authors
- Umberto Eco, Richard Dixon
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- May 17, 2016
- Format
- Paperback
- Reading lane
- Literary Fiction