Milan during the time of Bishop Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius in 394 AD was the new centre of the Roman Empire, a cosmopolitan city home to Christian and pagan alike–the perfect setting for demon hunt.

A young girl and an elderly priest are found dead in their beds under similar circumstances, after a night of restless nightmares. Meanwhile, pagans are brought outside the city walls to be burned at the stake, since the new laws proclaimed by Theodosius make worship of the old gods a crime punishable by death. Milan is undergoing a violent transition from the classical world into the Christian Middle Ages. Embodying that transition in many ways is the hero of this novel by Italian author Giovanni Anastasi.

Aurelius Severian is an ex-Roman soldier turned priest who has now given up both professions to hunt the invisible, incorporeal agents of the devil. His calm, silent demeanor and larger-than-life capability make him a force to contend with. Like his namesake Marcus Aurelius, he is a stoic, perhaps as way to cope with his tortured past. We perceive Severian mostly through the lens of his servant Flavian, a pagan slave boy he saves from the stake. As Christian and pagan, they distrust each other at first, but circumstances force them to adopt a necessary partnership.

Severian and Flavian must race against time to examine the corpse of the slain girl and find out who killed her and why. Meanwhile, a mysterious sorcerer works black magic while watching their every move, calling on the name of the Lady of the Night Gates, the demon whose statue Severian discovers under the girl’s bed.

I was pleasantly surprised by Demon Hunter Severian. It’s a horror mystery/historical fantasy romp through late classical Milan. There were a few typos and some similes and descriptions that didn’t quite work for me, however. The novel at times follows a standard formula for historical action thrillers–I won’t point out what that formula is exactly, but some scenes follow the script gesture by gesture. Which isn’t to say the story didn’t work. It was a fun ride and left me satisfied at the end.

Demon Hunter Severian has the potential of developing into a series revolving around its central character, and if it does, it would be interesting to see whether the secondary characters introduced in this first novel develop any further. The novel’s setting is unconventional, capturing a curious moment in Italian history where pagan and Christian could still live side by side, even though the pagans were starting to be hunted down for their religious differences. It’s a situation of religious intolerance mixed with politics that speaks a lot to the world of today, especially in the Middle East. What I liked about Anastasi’s treatment of good and evil is that neither side is given moral superiority–there are Christians who act good and bad just as there are pagans who act good and bad. These shades of grey enable the novel to pay respect to the hybridity of Milanese culture at the time.

I think Acheron’s mission to publish Italian fantasy and speculative fiction for the English-speaking public is a fine one. Italy has so much history, so many ancient ruins, and so many old, forgotten cities buried underneath the modern ones that the fantastic literature emerging from such its landscape is guaranteed to be rich.

Adriano Barone, the head editor, told me by email, “With Acheron we want to fill a gap we think exists in the fantasy world, that is, Italian settings and Italian folklore. Italy is renowned for its history and art … we think this fascination can extend to speculative fiction too.”

At the Northeast MLA Conference last weekend in Toronto, which I attended, there was a panel in Italian on fantastic literature. This leaves me with the impression that Italian fantastic literature is making inroads at a time when it stands to build bridges between cultures and languages.

Acheron Books is an online ebook publisher of Italian fantasy and speculative fiction authors in English–“Your ferry to the Other Worlds” is their slogan. Giovanni Anastasi is the pen name of Luca Tarenzi, author of two previous novels When the Devil Strokes You and Godbreaker. He won the Premio Italia Fantasy and SF Literature Prize in 2012. The text has been translated from the original Italian by Nigel J. Ross.

Read an excerpt here.

Like it? Then please purchase your copy on the Acheron website.

If you would rather support Amazon.com, which we all know to be a poor perishing retailer, then do so here.