A cash van disappears, literally into thin air. It was loaded with nearly three million, the revenues of the Saint-Vincent casino. Statements by one of the guards, left stunned on the ground, set in motion a fairly routine robbery investigation. But there is something in the intuition of Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone-he calls it a "smell"-that doesn't quite fit, something that surprisingly links everything to a previous case that keeps gnawing at him. "He had to start over, the murder of accountant Favre was still waiting for a principal, and maybe there was a detail, a smell that he hadn't perceived." Against the advice of police chiefs and prosecutors who would like to clear the field for a more high-minded investigation, he thus begins to grind clues toward a truth that, as usual in his experience, raises heavy existential questions. His method is far beyond the orthodoxy of a well-combed official, and his life is full of complications and contradictions. Perhaps because of a repressed desire for fatherhood, her relationship with young Gabriel, her lonely neighbor, is increasingly constraining. Lupa "the big puppy" has settled permanently into her day. But the shadows of the past thicken ever more menacingly: the death of the Baiocchi killer, his wife Marina's murderer, and her corpse never found; the precise, verified feeling of being under the lens of the services, for unknown reasons.
It seems that in this novel many knots come to the comb, secrets and mysteries; and indeed, interwoven with the main thread, various stories unfold. So do the personal stories (loves, vices, dreams) that facet all of Rocco's shambling associates in police headquarters. A complexity and richness that give proof that Antonio Manzini projects himself beyond the detective novel, toward a more universal representation of social life and especially psychological and moral life. And so it is that the character Rocco Schiavone, with his twisted way of being passionate, with his way of suffering, of asking for affection, is destined to remain etched in the memory of his readers.
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).