Achille DeLuca

There is a new streaming detective to pay attention to, Detective DeLuca, an Italian miniseries with Italian subtitles currently available on Mhz Choice.

New to us here in the States that is. This is a 2008 production, one season, four episodes, that was on BBC Four, based on crime novels by Carlo Lucarelli. It is set in several parts of Italy during 1938-1948, pre and post war Italy.

Achille DeLuca is a handsome chick magnet, who in every episode falls into bed with an appealing female, sometimes twice. He might remind someone of Marcello Mastroianni. He smokes unfiltered cigarettes, leaving clouds of blue smoke that almost make you want to open a window

There is no backstory to DeLuca. "I'm a policeman," he'll explain to anyone who wonders about him. There is no ex-wife; no children; no mother and father to provide home cooked meals. In fact, for an Italian, he's not much on food, but he does like his coffee.

There are only four episode in the single season. Why more were not produced is not known. DeLuca solves crimes is politically charged atmospheres, but doesn't always get to see final justice dispensed. He is honest, and will not fall in line with those who want quick closure to cases. 

As such, his career starts in an Adriatic Coast town of Rimini, and with his success of at least closing the case, gets promoted to Rome, but we next see him in Bologna. He gets bounced around a bit.

The series is a period piece with careful attention to detail. The police take photos of crime scenes with a twin lens Rolleiflex cameras in leather cases; the "horizontal staff," i.e. the prostitutes in brothels all wear boxy underpants.

If the British love to show off their trains, the Italians are showing off their Fiat police cars that look like large toys, seating four.

Achille wears three piece suits, almost always with his fedora. He has clear, light blue sad eyes and a Continental, neatly trimmed mustache; no belt, always suspenders.

The setting is Italy in its Il Duce, Fascist period. In fact, Deluca is initially part of OVRA, the Italian secret police, an association that follows and haunts him a bit even as Mussolini is deposed and the war ends  

The OVRA, unofficially known as the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism. The first episode has a lot of clicked heels and Fascists salutes and references to Il Duce. Mussolini is briefly portrayed, surrounded by his body guards, walking along the beach shoreline

Episodes move through time quickly, and DeLuca finds himself in Bologna as the war ends and elections are going to be held. His love interest is a gorgeous prostitute, Valeria, who ultimately helps him solve the last case.

The music is subtle, and very much like Bernard Hermann's score for Vertigo. You can always tells the mood through the music.

In the third episode DeLuca is cut loose from any police association and is trying to make his way to Ferrara, as he poses as an engineer. Trouble follows, and he is on the run, eventually helping a local, inexperienced Carabinieri solve a crime. Their friendship is renewed in the last episode.

Four episodes were not enough. Perhaps they moved through time too fast. The author, whose book the character is based on, wrote nine novels, so certainly there would have been more material.

I'm going to miss Detective DeLuca. And I'm going to miss his girlfriend.

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