Sangue Marcio
Pietro and Massimo are two privileged children. They come from a wealthy family and have everything one could wish for: a villa with a swimming pool, a private tennis court, the first video games. A happy childhood, suspended in a bourgeois dream. Until, one autumn day in 1976, their world collapses. The police storm into their home and arrest their father. A few days later, the newspapers will dub him “the Monster of the Cinque Terre.” Almost thirty years later, the two brothers couldn’t be more different. Pietro grew up in an institution in Turin and became a crime reporter. Massimo, entrusted to an uncle, is now a police commissioner. What brings them back together is a trail of murders, committed by a ruthless serial killer. Time has changed them. Massimo, once an impulsive boy who used to boss everyone around with his motto “Go hide in Tibet,” is now a hollow man, full of shadows and too many Martinis. Pietro is introverted, unable to let others get close. But the past is never forgotten. And so, as the killer continues to strike, the two brothers draw closer again, until they find themselves facing a reckoning—one that leads back to the day their world fell apart. Sangue marcio is a magnetic novel that delves deep into its characters’ psychology, forcing the reader to confront the dark side of human nature. It is the debut novel of Antonio Manzini, first published twenty years ago and now finally back in bookstores.