From left: Mino Pecorelli, Giulio Andreotti

Gaetano Badalementi

In 1979 Mino Pecorelli was shot dead in broad daylight on a busy Roman street. His murder initially touched off an intense, but brief investigation. The case was dropped for political reasons and only reopened again in 1993, fourteen years later, when informers in the Maxi Trial told authorities that a well-known Italian senator, Giulio Andreotti, had asked Mafia captain Gaetano Badalamenti to arrange the hit as a personal favor.

AVERAGE SINNERS is a novel loosely based on the murder of Mino Pecorelli. The story begins just after the reopening of the Maxi Trials in 1992. The main character, Paolo Taviani, has returned to Rome to take over Occham's Razor, a bookstore he has inherited from his former employer, Carlo Levi. The story deals with Paolo's psychological conflict: Should he involve himself in the reopening of his uncle's trial, or should he stay out of it? Because of his American wife's renewed Catholic faith and her growing friendship with her religion teacher, Father Dante, Paolo understands the moral implications of both decisions, while his distrust of organized religion spurs him to be cynical about both the trial and his wife’s faith.