A Private Venus
NPR Summary
A Private Venus centers on a disillusioned loner with good reason to be disillusioned. Once a doctor, he was imprisoned for murder after compassionately helping a dying woman kill herself. Now free, but forbidden to practice medicine, Duca gets hired by a Milanese plastics mogul who, like most rich men in noir, is a respectable creep. The assignment is to straighten out the mogul's 22-year-old son, who has gone from being a normal, spoiled heir to a guilty, taciturn young alcoholic. Translated by Howard Curtis.