Domenic Stansberry. The Last Days of Il Duce (1998) 168 pp.
Publisher’s description: “Set in North Beach, the old Italian neighborhood of San Francisco … the story of Niccoló Jones, an ex-lawyer obsessed with his brother’s wife, an obsession he won’t give up even though it implicates him in murder—and leads him into the intricate and tangled history of his neighborhood. Aging Italian fascists, vengeful Chinese landlords, senile Beat poets who mutter into the ruins of abandoned hotels—all inhabit the shadows as Niccoló pursues Marie Donnatelli, the woman at the heart of his obsession …”