…Because He Was Evil is the debut novel from Domenico Del Re, the pseudonym for an anonymous European writer with German and Italian roots. It opens with a punch. Young Lucia, an innocent young girl anticipating her birthday celebration, discovers her parents bloodied and beaten in their Salerno restaurant. This haunting prologue sets the tone for a novel that refuses to look away from the darkest corners of human nature and the ways violence echoes across generations.
Set primarily in southern Italy, the novel jumps between two time periods, the late 1970s and early 2000s, unfolding a dark family saga that is equal parts crime story, generational drama, and exploration of generational violence. In the 1970s sections, we witness brutal acts of violence and intimidation tied to the Camorra and to figures like Carmelo, Mario, and their associates, whose power looms over small towns like Salerno and Scafati. By contrast, the 2000s timeline follows Gennaro and his siblings as they grow up in Scafati, gradually uncovering traces of their parents’ past while negotiating their own identities in a place still haunted by secrets. The dual timeline allows the novel to show how violence reverberates across decades: a child’s birthday party in 1978 derailed by bloodshed echoing into the discovery of a skull on an abandoned football pitch in 2001. It’s an effective choice and the right one to tell this particular story.
Maria is the main character of the 70s sections, and Del Re handles her perspective beautifully. Her violation and subsequent forced marriage are depicted without sensationalism and with an unflinching honesty. The author captures her psychological survival mechanisms, dissociation during assault, compulsive cleaning afterward, with clinical precision that makes her suffering visceral to read. As I mentioned, the novel’s structure mirrors its thematic preoccupations. Del Re alternates between past and present, showing how the covered-up crimes of the 1970s reverberate into the 2000s through young Gennaro’s story. This intergenerational storytelling technique helps keep the pacing fresh and interesting to read.
Del Re’s prose style is simple yet effective. Chapters often begin with domestic tranquility—the anticipation of birthday presents, morning coffee routines, family conversations—before violence erupts into these mundane moments. This juxtaposition amplifies the horror by showing how quickly safety can shatter. The dialogue, rich with local dialect and cultural specificity, grounds the story firmly in southern Italian society while making its themes universally recognizable to a Western audience. I will say it’s sometimes confusing to see the Italian characters all speaking English, but I guess there was no way around that. Also, apparently the novel is actually a translation from German, and it seems to be translated competently.
The novel excels as both crime thriller and drama, the kind of story you will expect to see an HBO miniseries about. Del Re looks at how the mafia isn’t merely an external criminal organization but a system interwoven into family structures, social traditions and community dynamics. The book’s unflinching darkness may challenge some readers. Del Re offers few moments of genuine hope, and the graphic depictions of violence and sexual assault are often disturbing. Yet this starkness serves the novel’s purpose: evil isn’t sanitized here but shown in all its casual, devastating banality. The author refuses to provide easy comfort or redemption, forcing readers to confront how violence shapes communities across generations.
If there’s a weakness, it might be in the novel’s relentless pessimism. Some readers may find the unremitting brutality overwhelming, longing for more substantial glimpses of human goodness. In addition, it’s somewhat on the briefer side (184 pages), which some people may like and others may not. However, this is a really enjoyable book that fans of movies like “The Departed”, “The Godfather” and so on will dig. The characters themselves mostly aren’t conventionally “likeable”, but they are realistically drawn, ensuring the story grips you even when you recoil from their actions.
In summary …Because He Was Evil is a gripping crime fiction book that I highly recommend. Del Re asks us to consider how violence reverberates across time, shaping families and communities long after the crime itself has faded. This is a book for readers of writers like Roberto Saviano, Elena Ferrante, or Mario Puzo, and who have a thick skin for gruesome scenes. The title itself becomes the novel’s most chilling insight, that sometimes no complex motivation or justification exists for cruelty. Sometimes evil is committed simply because the perpetrator chooses it.
You can get your copy of “Because he was evil…” or read for free on Kindle Unlimited here!
