"This delicious novel is a genre all its own -- Italian neorealism meets feminist noir. I can't wait for more Verasani in English." -- Sara Paretsky
At first glance, Private Detective Giorgia Cantini is not a pretty sight as she sits at a bar, downing her fourth cocktail of the night, feeling moody and obnoxious. Brutally honest, she smokes too much, exercises too little, eats on the run, and -- the cardinal sin for Italian women -- is a messy housekeeper. Yet, despite all that, people trust her and are attracted to her as a confidant. Her stream of unhappy clients comes from the conventional middle-class and upper-middle-class confines of Bolognese families. While the Cantini Detective Agency mostly investigates the tangled affairs of unhappily married couples, Verasani exposes the hierarchies and prejudices of Italian "family culture" that often lead to tragic acts of violence against those who stray from domestic and sexual norms.
Giorgia's own family is a prime example of that dysfunctional family culture. The nominal head of the agency is her alcoholic father, a retired major of the Carabinieri. Both her mother and sister Ada are dead, both suicides. Although a true loner, Giorgia negotiates a vital network of artists, clients, friends, misfits, and lovers.
What is the dark secret behind Alvise Lumini's fiancée? Is Engineer Comolli's wife having an affair? Will their daughter starve herself to death? Did Giordano Lattice murder his wife? Why is the film professor Andrea Berti pursuing Giorgia? What is the secret hidden in the box of Ada's letters that arrive unexpectedly in Giorgia's apartment? Mixed in with traditional sleuthing we find a novel about character and family history, domestic violence, changing Italy, and the textures of life in Bologna.
Corse, Taylor: - Taylor Corse is an associate professor of English at Arizona State University. Professor Corse has written extensively about the literary culture of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, including such writers as John Dryden, Aphra Behn, Anne Conway, Alexander Pope, and Tobias Smollett. He has also translated works from Latin and Italian, most recently the selected poetry of Ferruccio Benzoni.
Verasani, Grazia: - Grazia Verasani was born in Bologna in 1964, a city where she still lives and writes. She is an author of novels, plays, and screenplays as well as a musician who composes, performs, and records. She graduated from the Accademia d'arte drammatica in Rome at the age of twenty. After some work with the Teatro Stabile d'Abruzzo and with the Teatro Stabile di Torino, she began writing, while continuing her work as an actor. Originally published in 2004, "Quo Vadis, Baby?" was made into a film the following year, and a TV series soon followed. Verasani won the 2011 National Dramatic Art Festival of Pesaro award for best author for her play "Maternity Blues (From Medea)," which was later made into a film that won the 2012 Tonino Guerra Prize for best screenplay. In 2016 Verasani published the epistolary novel "Lettera a Dina." Her most recent novel (2017) is "La vita com'è. Storia di bar, piccioni, cimiteri e giovani scrittori."
Vitullo, Juliann: - Juliann Vitullo is an associate professor of Italian at the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University where she also served as Associate Director. She has written on various aspects of medieval, early modern, and contemporary Italian culture with emphasis on the relationship between literary traditions and the material world, including economics, food, and gender studies.
