Dodici mesi in giallo
The disappearance of a shop assistant during the January sales in a labyrinthine department store is the latest case to be handled by Berta and Marta Miralles, sisters and homicide inspectors in Valencia. As in this story by Alicia Giménez-Bartlett, so too in the twelve tales of this anthology—one for each month of the year—the crime plot is interwoven with everyday life. These are the daily routines of detectives created by the authors in their novel series, characters who for many readers have come to resemble almost classical figures of contemporary crime fiction. Domenico Cigno (February), the voracious reporter created by Luca Mercadante—thin on professional success but massive in build—who drags his melancholy through situations of decay; Carlo Monterossi (March), the repentant television writer born from the pen of Alessandro Robecchi, who lends his social empathy and refined tastes to his circle of real investigators; Viola (April), the cheerful and unlucky television journalist imagined by Simona Tanzini, who jokes about a life marked by illness and understands crimes and criminals with the help of her own “peculiarity”; Mirna Pagani (May), inspector of the Venetian Lagoon, with her vibrant, desire-driven mother, created by Serena Cappellozza, whose investigations unfold amid countless personal difficulties; the flâneur Lorenzo La Marca (June), by Santo Piazzese, who solves mysteries in Palermo’s historic center, preferably while enjoying chilled whites and enveloping reds; the duo Saverio Lamanna and Peppe Piccionello (July), brought together by Gaetano Savatteri, grappling with old skeletons from the past; Antonio Acanfora (August), the “naïve” and thoroughly Neapolitan police officer portrayed by Andrej Longo, who by natural inclination uncovers the human core of the case that unwillingly lands in his lap; Serena Martini (September), the overburdened mother and heroine of the writing duo Malvaldi and Bruzzone, who—to the criminals’ misfortune—is above all a refined chemist, and for whom no crime fails to leave a trace of scent; Ryan and Ray (October), the detectives created by English author Simon Mason, as ill-matched a pair as one could imagine, this time dealing with the affairs of the deputy chief of police of the Thames Valley; Massimo the bartender and the old men of the BarLume (November), carved in Tuscan stone by Marco Malvaldi, embodiments of Italian comic crime fiction; and finally Deputy Chief Rocco Schiavone (December), whom Antonio Manzini has endowed with the worst temperament in all of crime storytelling. What emerges is a parade of detectives—by profession or by passion—at once eccentric and reassuringly familiar.