Winter Swallows
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4.5 • 8 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The tenth Commissario Ricciardi Neapolitan mystery is “endlessly surprising… a delicate balancing act between love and pain, horror and beauty.”—ThrillerNord
Christmas has just passed and the city is preparing to celebrate New Year when, on the stage of a variety show, famous actor Michelangelo Gelmi fires a gun at his wife, Fedora Marra.
The shooting itself would be nothing strange: it is repeated every evening as part of their performance. But this time, someone replaced one of the blanks with a real bullet. Gelmi swears his innocence, but few believe him. Approaching old age and with a career in decline, the actor has become increasingly dependent on his wife, much younger than him and at the height of her fame. However, rumor has it that she had fallen in love with another man and was preparing to leave Gelmi. A straightforward case of infidelity and marital jealousy? Commissario Ricciardi has more than one doubt.
A mystery made darker by the sudden fog that envelops an almost gothic Naples, Commissario Riccardi’s latest adventure will enrapture readers until its final, dramatic act.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1930s Italy, De Giovanni's elegant 10th novel featuring Neapolitan Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi (after 2018's Nameless Serenade) opens with a tantalizing prologue in which an unknown narrator confesses to shooting Ricciardi. Flash back to the period between Christmas and New Year's Eve, when Ricciardi is called to the Teatro Splendor. During the finale of a popular musical revue, singer and film actor Michelangelo Gelmi shot his beautiful and even more famous wife, Fedora Marra. Gelmi swears that, as with every previous performance, he had loaded the gun with blanks. Fedora's death is the talk of the city, and Ricciardi is urged to close the case immediately; after all, every member of the audience saw Gelmi fire the fatal shot. Ricciardi isn't convinced of the actor's guilt and delves deeper. The chaste romance between Ricciardi and his true love, Enrica Colombo, who has rejected the marriage proposal of "a suave and captivating German officer," provides welcome counterpoint to the murder investigation—which eventually ties in with Ricciardi's shooting, which, no surprise, he survives. De Giovanni should win new fans with this one.
