Fugitive

Massimo Carlotto's odyssey began in 1976 when, as a member of a militant leftwing organization that had fallen awry of the ruling powers, he was arrested and falsely accused of murder. Unwilling to play the role of fall guy in a political power struggle, he chose to flee the country rather than wait for a verdict that the whole country knew was a foregone conclusion. He first went into hiding in the French underworld and then made his way to a Mexico embroiled in bloody class conflict. Betrayed by a Mexican lawyer, he returned to Italy in 1985 and spent six years in prison, during which time the "Carlotto case" became Italy's most famous legal fiasco.
Carlotto was finally freed with a presidential pardon in 1993. Subsequently, his case helped bring about significant changes to the Italian criminal code to ensure that similar judicial travesties would never happen again. The Fugitive is the first book Carlotto wrote as a free man. Virtually a handbook on how to live life on the run, The Fugitive is also a novel full of underworld characters and moments that Carlotto recounts in the prose that has become his trademark.

Massimo Carlotto was born in Padua, Italy. In addition to the many titles in his extremely popular "Alligator" series, he is also the author of The Fugitive, Death's Dark Abyss, Poisonville, Bandit Love, and At the End of a Dull Day. One of Italy's most popular authors and a major exponent of the Mediterranean Noir novel, Carlotto has been compared with many of the most important American hardboiled crime writers.