Status Updates From The Corsican

“I was here with Buonaparte when he bought it last year.”

Bently stared across the table. “Sartene owns this place?”

Benito nodded again. “He owns the whole building. You might say he’s your landlord.”

Bently laughed. “We’re a great intelligence agency. I was told some Paris consortium owned it.”

“Buonaparte does business under many names,” Benito said. “The only name he never uses is his own.”

He laughed softly, then leaned to her and kissed her forehead, allowing his hand to run gently along her cheek. “The time will pass,” he whispered. “Then there will be many years together.”

😭😭😭 this flashback has been everything <333

He laughed softly, then leaned to her and kissed her forehead, allowing his hand to run gently along her cheek. “The time will pass,” he whispered. “Then there will be many years together.”

😭😭😭 this flashback has been everything <333

“Yes, but she’s not strong. A strong man needs a strong woman. Only weak men need the other kind, so they can have someone to dominate.”

“What would you know about it?” she said. “You married the first peasant girl you saw in the mountains.” There was a slight smile on her face. “A little movement here, a little movement there, and you were like some poor goat, being led to slaughter.”

Right now, we’re like the ten-year-old boy who picks up the gun and seeks vengeance for his father’s death. What he does is right. But if he waits until he is grown, remembering all the time what he must do, then his vengeance is more certain

What he doesn’t know is how much money we’re making. We still live poorly and he thinks we’re peasants. He has no idea we save this money for our future.

But don’t do it too long. Just until you learn, however long that takes. When you’ve learned and have money, then you should start your own group. Never trust these Marseille Corsicans. They’re more French than anything else. But use them now.”

I spoke to this man, François Spirito, who works for Carbone. He’s agreed that you can each work in his group.

If you’re men, you must work the rest of your lives for them, not for yourselves. Mémé, when you marry, it will be the same, and you should start to plan for that now.”

“How, Papa?”

“We didn’t get rich, but we didn’t live under the heel of anybody’s boot. But things are different now. The days of the bandit are gone. Now everything is done by bigger and bigger organizations, like this one Paul Carbone has here.

The sergeant’s screams were deafening, turning into a muffled gagging sound as Marcosi forced the severed penis down his throat with the blade of his knife. The sergeant choked to death on his own member before he could lose consciousness from a loss of blood.

Finally at the revenge part :)

The blade of the knife slipped under the socket of one eye and with a quick twist of the wrist the eye popped forward and dangled on a cord against the sergeant’s cheek. Within seconds the other eye followed. Marcosi pulled the gray egg-shaped testicles from the severed scrotum and placed one in each empty socket.

Slowly he opened the sergeant’s trousers as the man screamed for mercy. Marcosi did not speak. His eyes told the sergeant the reason. He pulled the man’s genitals from his trousers as his body bucked violently, fighting to escape. The knife moved in three quick motions and the blood spurted from the severed arteries as he placed the prize on the man’s chest. Now he worked even more quickly.

Bonaventure Marcosi

During that later six-month period the donkey had awakened and some subtle but definite resistance to Sartene’s smuggling and currency operations had developed. What followed had been a minor conflict, in which several of Carbone’s Vietnamese employees had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

The moral ambiguity the author has given Sartene does help balance out the preachy 'he's principled' stuff

I'm now annoyed with it b/c it's combined with the slow burn. There's suppose to be revenge in this book, but I'm not to the part for the reason for the revenge and impatient to get there. I need the author to dial back explaining about how wise and principled Sartene is, I get it. It's starting to feel like unnecessary filler

As excited as I was to find a book with a man who is principled, has respectable values, has confidence, protectiveness, and a savage pursuit of his goals in a quietly intelligent way (this is so unlike toxic antiheroes in dark romance, hence refreshing), the author is laying it on thick & it's starting to become almost preachy, similar to Jane Eyre, but minus the religion. I wish he'd dial it back

I'm actually afraid Sartene *won't* be blind, this entire book is the author pointing out how well Sartene sees his reality, how well he reads people, including Francesco. Sartene having a blind spot would make him more interesting.

Jennifer Freyd came up with the term 'betrayal blindness' --> This is another layer to the themes of betrayal, trust, & loyalty in this book. I'm on edge wondering if Sartene is blind to Francesco's willingness to betray him.

I wish more authors were aware of the different layers of betrayal and interwove it in their plot. I also like this outside of relationships, institutions can have it too

lol i hope no one reads my status updates. I don't want to use up storage on my phone or computer by storing notes in an app so status updates on gr are better for me

I mean, I'd recommend this to romance readers if they appreciate strong men and can live w/o hea. I think this is why I liked The Saxon Stories so much and the tv show Vikings. I remember when watching Vikings being so confused as to why the audience was mainly male vs female. Yeah, romance wasn't center stage but I mean Travis Fimmel, a Skarsgard, and Alex Høgh Andersen? wake up ?

The lack of romance and no sex makes this a very safe recommendation for guys (or anyone, really) who don't want to go near romance and don't want to read anything close to sex scenes in books. But the style of writing is def old school, it's not as modern/fast-paced as Peter Swanson's books

I'm thinking of who I'd recommend this book too, and it's probably people who enjoy pulpy thrillers, who don't mind slow burn, basically. There's not a romance, no descriptive sex scenes, so I don't think I'd recommend this to romance readers. No hea in existence for a couple, if that's what someone is wanting to read. I don't mean to gender, but I feel most confidant recommending this to guys who enjoy these genres

In my review I want to connect this book to how it's similar to Dashiell Hammett's characters, also I'm getting the vibe this author's other books are in the vein of 80s thrillers like Manhunter (1986)

Iris Johansen did this better with her side kick character in The Wind Dancer. The reader sees through his dialogue and actions how he's a great guy and it's revealed slowly, subtly. She never explains it to the reader. I'm missing this style of writing. This author isn't giving me the chance to read through the lines

I've been swooning over Sartene, and he is swoon worthy, but one thing the author is doing that's starting to wear on me is constantly *explaining* how clever and wise Sartene is. Like, it doesn't have to be explained to me so thoroughly each and every time. There's room for subtext.

Sartene had nodded. “But donkeys have a nasty kick,” he had said. “We’ll let this one slumber in its stall for now. Later, when he wakes up, he’ll find his farm has been sold while he was asleep.”