The dawn rush, breakfast at the café, then nine hours of work at the court archive, a dinner full of silences, and the lights out at ten o'clock: Carlo Cappai is the embodiment of methodicalness, of loneliness. Of ordinariness. No one suspects that in his eyes that maze of boxes, files and folders is not dead paper at all. Quite the opposite: those folders speak, sometimes shouting their unheard truth, their demand for justice. They are the cases in which, in fact, the courts have failed, and the guilty have been acquitted "for not having committed the act" - in reality for the usual, petty complications of power. Cappai simply takes Justice where the Law has failed - always waiting, now forty years, to punish a guilt that has scarred his life. Walter Andretti, on the other hand, is a journalist plunged from Sports, where he was fine, to the News, where he is miserable. When the boss dumps coverage of two recent murders on him, Andretti despite himself investigates, and after initial awkwardness and missteps begins to sense that there is something strange in those deaths. A connection. Perhaps the same hand... Antonio Manzini, the creator of the unforgettable vicequestore Schiavone, enters the Giallo Mondadori catalog with a tight and surprising story that questions the balance between law and justice, and what we would be willing to do to heal our wounds.
Antonio Manzini was born in Rome in 1964.
He is an actor, screenwriter and writer.
He graduated from the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1988.
He has written screenplays for Alex Infascelli (Il siero della vanità, 2004) and Gabriele Salvatores (Come Dio comanda, 2008).
He is the television author of Il delitto di Via poma (directed by Roberto Faenza), numerous episodes of Squadra Antimafia and Il XII apostolo.
He was editor and screenwriter of the series Benvenuti a tavola 2 and Buscetta boss dei due mondi. In 2016, he directed his first film Cristian e Palletta contro tutti.
In 2005 he published his first novel: Sangue Marcio (Fazi editore), followed by La giostra dei criceti (Einaudi, 2007, reissued by Sellerio, 2017) and the short stories: Il mio tesoro and Giochiamo, with Niccolò Ammaniti (published in Crimini and in Il momento è delicato, Einaudi).
For Sellerio, he has published the novels in the successful series of Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone: Pista nera (2013), La costola di Adamo (2014), Non è stagione (2014), Era di maggio (2015) and 7-7-2007 (2016), Cinque indagini romane per Rocco Schiavone (2016), Pulvis et umbra (2017), Fate il vostro gioco (2018), Rien ne va plus (2019), Ah l'amore l'amore (2020) Vecchie conoscenze (2021) and Le ossa parlano (2022). From these novels is based the TV series Rocco Schiavone, on air on Rai 2 since November 2016, of which Antonio Manzini is scriptwriter together with Maurizio Careddu.
Also for Sellerio he published Sull'orlo del precipizio (2015), several short stories later collected in the anthology L'anello mancante (2018), Ogni riferimento è puramente casuale (2019), Gli ultimi giorni di quiete (2020), La mala erba (2022), Elp (2023) and Riusciranno i nostri eroi a ritrovare l’amico misteriosamente scomparso in Sud America? (2023).
For Chiarelettere he published Orfani bianchi (2016).
His novels have been translated in several countries.
His latest novel is Tutti i particolari in cronaca (Mondadori, 2024).