That Awful Mess on Via Merulana (Romanesco: Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana) is an Italian novel by Carlo Emilio Gadda, first published in Italy by Garzanti in 1957.

Detective Francesco Ingravallo, known to friends as Don Ciccio, is called in to investigate the murder of Liliana Balducci, a well-to-do woman who happens to be a close friend.

As Don Ciccio and his colleagues dig deeper into the grisly murder, the mechanics of the detective novel take a backseat to the wordplay and experimentation with which Gadda presents a panorama of life in early fascist Rome.

[1] That Awful Mess on Via Merulana was well received in Italian literary circles.

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