If you know you are to die tomorrow, how would you spend the last night of your life? The same dilemma troubles four political prisoners, a baron, a soldier, a poet, and a student in Gesualdo Bufalino's Night's Lies. On the last night before they go under the guillotine for plotting against the Bourbon monarchy, the four characters review their lives. Is it more betrayal and regret? Or do they find vindication in confession?

Night's Lies is good story-telling. This tale is a brilliant execution of setting, characterization, narrative, and irony. The setting parallels the moral and spiritual exile of the prisoners. Set in a remote fortress on an inhospitable island that "is known as an island but ought to be called a rock. For it is nothing more than a stack of volcanic tufas heaped up into the form of an enormous snout, wearisomely steep in places, but for the most part bare, sheer crag". "As by a tortuous path you clamber up, your eye embraces on the one hand the immensity of the open sea, an infinite reach of blue to the western horizon; on the other, beyond the neck of water, there is the mainland, where you glimpse a harbour, a crescent of dwarf houses; but neither man nor motion."

The man who holds part of the key to their destinies is Consalvo De Ritis, the Governor, who strikes a deal with the prisoners. If one of them should anonymously name their leader by sunrise, then all of them would be freed. If not, all of them hang. They are placed in a small room for the night.

Ingafu, the Baron; Saglimbeni, the Poet; Agesilaos, the Soldier; and Narcissus, the Student narrate in turn their own tales of intrigue, love, lust, violence, jealousy, honour, and twists of fate. They seem to be trying to convince not only the others but also themselves of the sense and purpose of their lives, all knowing that death awaits them in one form or another.

Do they betray their leader but lose their own souls? Or do they find some way to escape their fate? Night's Lies is an intriguing tale that evokes the danger and relief of holding a mirror to our lives and wondering what it all means. Just the ending in itself is worth the read.

Bufalino writes gorgeous prose and I think that's the first thing anyone who reads this book will notice. In fact, the language seemed a little too beautiful for the cruel subject matter and the lives of some of the characters.

Although this book has a political theme (four prisoners are sentenced to death for plotting against the Bourbon monarchy), this really isn't a political book in any sense of the word. Instead, it's a study of deception, of truth, of what is real and what is only imagined. It's a study of cunning storytelling that will keep any intelligent reader engrossed until the very last page. Bufalino is certainly playing a game with the reader, but he does play fair.

The four prisoners decide to pass the last night of their lives with each telling a tale that is significant in his life. While each has a tale to tell, how much of his tale is truth and how much is deception? And who, in the end, will discern the truth from the lie?

The answer is right in front of us, almost from page one, something that makes Night's Lies all the more intriguing.

Night's Lies is a short book, a novella really, that can easily be read in one sitting, surely in one evening. It is, however, despite its brevity, a book that packs a punch. Well worth the time and highly recommended.

I just finished the book and I strongly recommend it. Although very hard to read and full of historical references, the plot is very thick and keeps your attention high throughout the journey. If you liked the Decameron you'll love this book, if you like historical fiction this is the book for you, if you want to know more about Sicily's history don't hesitate to pick the book in your hands. Best to read with a glass of Brandy on a coffee table, out on a porch overlooking the ocean, during a warm starry summer night. E-mail me for suggestion on similar books. Enjoy it Simone

After Umberto Eco's classic "The Name of the Rose," this book wins hands down. Flawless structure, suspense and a deft handling of politics are some of the joys in this accomplished piece. It is both classic and post modern, with stories within stories and at the same time a beginning, middle and end that adds up to a thoroughly entertaining book. If you like Borges, this would be the novel he always wanted to write when he kept complaining novels had to many wasted words: None to be found here.

Italy, the middle of 19th Century. Four political prisoners are spending their last night in a badly-lit dungeon; they have been imprisoned in the most inaccessible fortress of the Kingdom of Neaples. These four men are going to die, because they have all been sentenced to death for their terrorist activities. Each of them in turn tells his story. One of them is the chief of the secret (and mysterious) patriotic organisation they belong to. One of them is a liar. To find out who the liar is you can only read the novel. And then re-read it again, becuse in this novel things aren't exactly what they seem. A small masterpiece, mixing a hypnotic style with a breath-taking plot. And know that once you've started reading it you cannot stop; plan your reading carefully!

I am an Italian College student and browsing on the Internet I find out that one of my favourite book has been translated in enghlish. That is a really pleasant surprise for me, for I think that Bufalino is a really good writer. Moreover when I read this book I found myself living in another place and time and I could feel the warmth of the Sicilian sun even when lying on my bed in a cold winter night. The style of the author is certainly admirable since he uses words in such a way that this book sounds more like a poem than the narration of a period of the author's life. I believe that Bufalino's "Blind Argus" is a fantastic book! If you know how to fly with your imagination and read it, believe me, you will think the same!

Anna Ferigo

Set in a Sicilian sanatorium in the late 40s, this novel--written by one of the finest Italian writers of the 80s--deals (in fewer pages) with the same basic themes of Th. Mann's masterpiece. It is a mediterranean, sun-scorched, surrealistic, stylistically baroque magic mountain, and deserves 4 stars only because Bufalino is also the author of the amazing Lies of the Night. Partly autobiographic, this novel is haunted, like other Bufalino's novels, by endless literary echoes and is totally enjoyable by foreign readers.

I read this book in italian, and I was absolutely impressed by the power of Bufalino's language. No matter what he writes about, you will be astonished by how effective it is. Like Marguerite Yourcenar, he manages to express very deep concepts with very few words: amazing. I am sure that also through the translation you will be able to appreciate it.