Vittorio Salvemini is a crooked property developer who has staked everything of a controversial villa complex in Southern Italy. One night a young woman is seen wondering down a main road, naked and covered in blood; two days later Vittorio’s manically promiscuous daughter Clara is found dead at the bottom of a multi-storey car park. How are the two connected? And was Clara’s death suicide or murder? Her half-brother Michele, a journalist with his own psychiatric problems, sets out to discover. A plot that depends on two characters behaving irrationally can never be altogether convincing, but Lagioia writes vividly and conjures up an atmosphere of deep menace with great skill.
