Authors:
AA.VV
Publishing house:
Sellerio
Date of publication:
12-07-2022
Crime and intrigue to be solved in the dark of night, eight stories blacker than ever.
The night when everything happens-a murder, the enigma and the detective who unravels it-is a typical noir situation. In these eight short stories, the warping mirror of the night reflects the investigative style peculiar to each of these well-known detectives, among the most original characters in the Italian giallo.
That of Massimo, barrista detective in Marco Malvaldi’s BarLume, is sleepless. Deputy Superintendent Alice Martelli is urgently called upon to investigate the theft of a very valuable necklace that occurred during a champagne tasting; along with her makes her official debut at a crime scene Matilde Viviani, who is three months old; completing the picture is Massimo, who, in order not to give in to sleep, does not stop walking.
Young Acanfora, an outspoken policeman born from the pen of Andrej Longo, offers the vivid account of his ascent under the stars on a mythical mountain in Ischia to save a girl who was in danger of dying. Romeo, a model little boy, has disappeared from the house in Màkari, next to the cottages of Lamanna and Piccionello; the distraught parents are avid salutists and come from the North, just enough for Gaetano Savatteri to launch his heroes in search of the missing, while sparing no reflections and biting jokes.
In Mondello there is a Pompeian-style villa famous for being a house of ghosts; here Giovà, the “Giufà” rewritten by Roberto Alajmo in a detective story key, will experience “The Worst Night of His Life.”
Il Biondino and Il Uomo con la Cravatta, the two protagonists of Alessandro Robecchi’s short story, form an “odd couple” that perhaps recalls the famous film, only they are two highly prized killers, hunting a target as evanescent as the night.
Vince Corso, the bibliodetective of Fabio Stassi’s works, always acts immersed in an atmosphere of vague and persistent mystery: a model has found an elusive way to die, Corso waits for dawn with the friends she summoned for the occasion.
Francesco Recami is, as always, sarcastic and irreverent, but this time in a splatter version: the night of Mattei-Ferri, the hateful false invalid of the House of Rings series, is shaping up to be terrible; but what awaits her teenage tormentors is even more so.
Rocco Schiavone, Antonio Manzini’s celebrated deputy detective, is awakened to investigate a boy smashed at the foot of a rocky ridge; in their ultra-luxury cabin, three rich, bored and spoiled young men must explain what happened; precisely the human types he can least stand, what’s more, at night and without the proper equipment for two thousand meters.