Graphic novel by Paolo Bacilieri Paolo Bacilieri is the graphic artist behind the comic book adaptation of A Private Venus by noirmeister Giorgio Scerbanenco. This is the first investigation for Duca Lamberti, the iconic character at work in Milan, city of crime. The graphic novel’s publication coincides with the last installment to come out in Linus. In the outskirts of Milan, a young shop assistant is found dead. Duca Lamberti, a former doctor banned from medical practice for helping an elderly patient to die, has finished a three-year prison sentence and now needs a job. He agrees to take care of the alcoholic son of a wealthy businessman, Pietro Auseri, and cure him of his alcoholism. The two threads of the story are interwined, Lamberti realizes, when he learns the young man was driven to drink over guilt at having caused the young woman’s death. Lamberti thus joins Inspector Carrua’s investigation. Paolo Bacilieri wields understatement to follow the players in this drama, revealing bit by bit the little stories that are wrapped in the fog of a criminal’s Milan by breaking up the picture, alternating points of view, close-ups, and long shots, and deploying an eroticism that equally caresses bodies and architectures. Paolo Bacilieri is one of Italy’s leading graphic artists today, his works translated all over the world. He’s been drawing and storytelling since the 1980s, even since, at age seventeen, with a degree from Bologna’s Academy of Fine Arts, he apprenticed himself to the great Milo Manara. His Zeno Porno stories, about his most famous character of the same name, won the Gran Guinigi Award for Best Solo Author at the 2006 Lucca Comics & Games. Since 1999 he has published with Sergio Bonelli Editore (Napoleone, Jan Dix, Dylan Dog). In 2012 he brought out Sweet Salgari (Coconino Press), a comic book biography of author Emilio Salgari, ten years in the making, and winner of multiple prizes. The years 2014 to 2019 saw the publication of Bacilieri’s Fun (winner of the 2018 Eisner Award, for the American edition), More Fun, both of which revisit the genesis and legend of crossword puzzles, and Ettore e Fernanda (Coconino Press). No artist surpasses Bacilieri in depicting the urban landscape and especially Milan’s, as can be seen in his Tramezzino (Canicola 2018), a story of young love in the shadow of the Velasco Tower, and winner of the 2019 Micheluzzi Award for Best Illustration. His most recent work is Bob84, scripted by Vincenzo Felosa. Bacilieri is a regular contributor to Linus, Domus, Abitare, and many other magazines. 

HARLAN COBEN RAYMOND CHANDLER AWARD 2022 The Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar, or a parking lot, or at the grocery store. His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. Adam Price has all the trappings of the American Dream: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, a big house, and a good job, a seemingly perfect life. Until he runs into the Stranger, who reveals a devastating secret about his wife Corinne, and his life caves in like a house of cards. Corinne begs him to meet her so she can explain, but when he agrees, she disappears. Adam realizes that something is up. How did the stranger know those things about his wife? Is he involved in her disappearance? Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne’s deception, because the Stranger hasn’t just whispered in his ear. He’s told others unspeakable secrets: acquaintances, friends, and neighbors. He holds their lives in his hands, and threatens to end them. Harlan Coben has a degree in political science and a past as a basketball player. Over the course of his career, he has received the prestigious Anthony Award, for Deal Breaker (1995), and the Edgar Award and Shamus Award for Fade Away (1996). His over thirty novels, translated into forty-five languages, have become bestsellers in the U.S., the U.K., and France, and have sold over seventy-five million copies the world over. His bibliography includes seventeen stand-alone novels, soon to be joined by I Will Find You next year. Eleven of his novels written between 1995 and 2016 make up the series built around the sports agent Myron Bolitar. He has also turned out two spin offs: the Mickey Bolitar Trilogy and Windsor Horne Lockwood III, consisting of just one novel at present: Win (2021). His new Wilde series consists of two: The Boy from the Woods (2020) andThe Match (2022). In   addition, in 2016 Coben published the graphic novel The Magical Fantastical Fridge, illustrated by Leah Tinari. In 2003, the New York Times asked Coben to write a story, an unusual editorial move that had not been seen in many years. So it was that, on June 15th, 2003, his story “The Key to My Father” appeared in the pages of the Times. In 2021, Longanesi published a Coben novel to critical and popular acclaim: Fuga (Run Away, 2019), thus launching the author in its catalogue. This year, Longanesi has brought out Coben’s 2015 The Stranger, on which the Netflix series of the same name is based. Previous novels by Coben, published by Mondadori, include: Non dirlo a nessuno (Tell No One, 2001), Svaniti nel nulla (Gone for Good, 2002), Suburbia Killer (The Innocent, 2005), Estate di morte (The Woods, 2007), and Senza lasciare traccia (Long Lost, 2009). Coben’s novels

Bari, early August. While Lolita Lobosco is trying to enjoy her vacation, in the shed on the Terrarossa farmstead a body turns up: that of Suni Digioia, a young businesswoman, environmentalist, and activist for the cause of farmworkers’ rights. On the door to the shed, in bright red letters, the words, “Come in! I’ve hanged myself” are scrawled. It certainly looks like a suicide, but Inspector Lobosco isn’t buying it, after interrupting her holiday to look into the death. When the autopsy confirms that the young woman was strangled, the victim’s private life is gone over with a fine-toothed comb: she was too attractive, too free-spirited and independent not to arouse envy and gossip. Lolita, however, doesn’t stop at the rumors and plunges into the murky waters of the deplorable working conditions of the farmhands to bring the truth to the surface. Gabriella Genisi has written numerous novels and created the character of Lolita Lobosco, protagonist of ten novels published by Sonzogno that have generated a TV series directed by Luca Miniero and starring Luisa Ranieri. The first eight are: La circonferenza delle arance (2010), Giallo ciliegia (2011), Uva noir (2012), Gioco pericoloso (2014), Spaghetti all'Assassina (2015), Mare nero (2016), Dopo tanta nebbia (2017), and I quattro cantoni (2020). This year Genisi has turned out two more Lolita Lobosco novels: Terrarossa, and Lo scammaro avvelenato e altre ricette.  Another of Genisi’s mainstays is the woman carabiniere from Italy’s Salento region, Chicca Lopez, who first appeared in the 2019 novel Pizzica amara, published by Nero Rizzoli and optioned by Fabula Pictures. In 2021, she published the second installment of that series: La regola di Santa Croce.

From the beginning, the war in Ukraine has taken one surprising turn after another. But in war, such surprises mean there have been mistakes, mistakes that essentially boil down to intelligence. In this war, those errors have been colossal on both sides: Russian and American intelligence have made epic fails. One example of ineptitude, out of the many on record? Both sides were convinced that the war would be a lightning strike, with the Russian army wiping out Ukraine’s resistance in ten days or so. In this book, Aldo Giannuli brings his own knowledge of the secret services to bear on the operations of the agencies, and their fumbles, in the war in Ukraine. His analysis also benefits from his skills as a historian. Indeed, to understand the role played by the secret services and their decisions, as well as the meaning of the war in progress, the facts have to contextualized, in order be able to figure out the “real Russia” and its long history as a “military empire”, all the while aware that “what is happening in Ukraine is, without a doubt, the most important conflict since 1945.” If we keep getting it wrong, our mistakes could well spell disaster. Aldo Giannuli is a researcher in contemporary history at the University of Milan, and for several years, he advised the district attorneys of Bari, Milan (on the Piazza Fontana bombing), Pavia, and Brescia (on the Piazza della Loggia attack), as well as Rome and Palermo. From 1994 to 2001, he collaborated with the Commission on Terrorist Attacks, and saw his name in the headlines when, in November 1996, he helped locate a large number of documents not catalogued by the Confidential Affairs Office of the Ministry of the Interior, since they had remained hidden in what would be dubbed the “Via Appia Archives”. That intense season of research and study would take the form of several books by Giannuli, including those brought out by L’Unità, such as Strategie della tensione (2005), Bombe a inchiostro (2008), L’abuso pubblico della storia (2009) and Il noto servizio, Giulio Andreotti e il caso Moro (2011). The author moved on to explore other areas of contemporary history and current events, with a special focus on intelligence and open-source intelligence in our information society, and the challenges posed by globalization and the crisis in the processes of modernization as they are traditionally understood. All these issues are examined in his books Come funzionano i servizi segreti (2009), 2012 la grande crisi (2010), Come i servizi segreti usano i media (2012), Uscire dalla crisi è possibile (2012), and Guerra all’Isis (2016). Giannuli’s most recent works are La strategia della tensione (2018), Storia della “Strage di Stato” (2019), Mafia mondiale (2019), and Coronavirus: globalizzazione e servizi segreti (2020).

Judith Pombo, a wealthy businesswoman and president of the most exclusive tennis club in Santander, is found dead in the cabin of a schooner belonging to the club, while a gala dinner is underway on the vessel. She’s been stabbed in the heart, yet the cabin was locked from the inside, no one else was in the cabin, and the murder weapon is missing. Guardia Civil lieutenant Valentina Redondo thus finds herself faced with the toughest case of her career just when she’s struggling to put the pieces of her private life together in the wake of a recent loss. She and her mixed bag of a team delve into some of the high society’s most unspeakable secrets, and by doing so come to know the murder victim, a powerful and high-handed woman, as well as all the guests invited onboard that fatal evening: each of them might conceivably think they have something to gain, rightly or wrongly, from Judith’s death. María Oruña was an attorney for ten years before she decided to self-publish her first novel, La mano del arquero, in 2013. Two years later, she gave up her legal career to devote herself full-time to being a novelist. And indeed, that year her novel Puerto escondido came out to critical and popular acclaim and kicked off a series that would be equally successful. It was followed by:  Un lugar a donde ir (2017), Donde fuimos invencibles (2018), Lo que la marea esconde (2021, Quel che la marea nasconde), and El camino del fuego (2022). The fourth of five novels about the investigations of Valentina Redondo (a character inspired by author Dolores Redondo, more from a personal than a literary point of view), Quel che la marea nasconde is the first to be translated into Italian. The novels in the series are set in Cantabria, in the cities of Santillana del Mar, Comillas, and Suances. For this reason, the Municipality of Suances seized on the series’ popularity to create a ‘Puerto Escondido Literary Itinerary’ which guides fans through the locations in the novels. In 2020, Oruña published the novel El bosque de los cuatro vientos.

United States, 2024. Now eighty-two years old, the current president of the country, Jeremy Williams, announces he won’t run for the next elections, and the Democratic Convention goes on to nominate the first potential woman president. Her name is Nathalie Brooks. She’s the governor of Arizona, known for her steely determination, her brilliant political career and her WWII hero father, who had been decorated by Eisenhower himself and was a member of the Congress. Who else but Nathalie Brooks could lead the world’s largest democracy into the future? At the same time, in Moscow, the president of the Russian Federation is delighted at this news, since the nomination is the highest achievement of the Operation Kazan, a plan hatched exactly one century earlier by the secret service; it was operative during the Cold War and even after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It’s an operation that is proving to be a golden opportunity to change the fate of the planet and launch the most diabolical attack on the U.S.A. ever conceived. Published before the recent Russian offensive that currently threatens all of Europe, this novel interweaves truth and fiction to take readers on a surprising journey back in time, from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the Normandy landings, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and up to the present day. Vicente Vallés studied journalism at the Faculty of Information Science at the University Complutense in Madrid and started his thirty-year career as a journalist first in radio, then in television: as a sports reporter on TVE and then at Spain’s leading television networks: as a writer in the political section, the head of the national section, the news director, and lastly, as a director and host of news shows, debates, interviews, and in-depth reports. Over the course of his career, Vallés has had the chance to cover many of the world’s major events since the 1980s, such as elections in Spain, the U.S., France, and the U.K.; the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001; in Madrid on March 11, 2004; and several other terrorist attacks on European cities such as Paris and Nice. He has moderated four Spanish election debates between the candidates for the presidency and now hosts a popular news program on Antena3. Vallés has received numerous awards, such as the Salvador de Madariaga, the International Press Club, the Antena de Oro, the Iris Awards of the Television Academy, and the 2016 Ondas Awards. His first novel has topped the Spanish bestseller lists for months now and has won the 2022 Primavera de Novela Award. His previous books were works of non-fiction: Trump y la caída del imperio Clinton (2017), about the rise of Donald Trump to the American presidency; and El rastro de los rusos muertos (2019), about Vladimir Putin’s international policy and the mysterious deaths of Russian spies and diplomats in recent years.

A seldom-seen play by Orson Welles, and a “masterpiece of stagecraft”, in the words of Le Monde. Never published in English, it appeared in print in France in 1952 and then vanished. Now this brilliant satire is a genuine rediscovery of the American filmmaker’s literary talent. “The Unthinking Lobster takes place in Hollywood,” Orson Welles explained, “while the town is in the grip of a cycle of religious movies. On one set an Italian neorealist is making the story of a saint like Bernadette who worked miracles and cured the sick. He has just fired the star and replaced her with a secretary from the typists’ pool because she seems to have a more spiritual quality. The scene they’re shooting has a lot of cripples in it, and the Italian has insisted that they must be real. She blesses them and — behold! — they throw away their crutches — they are cured! So Hollywood becomes the new Lourdes. Little pieces of film are sold as holy amulets… Except for the trade in sacred relics, business is terrible. The industry is only saved by the arrival of an archangel who goes into a conference with the studio heads, and makes a deal with them: heaven is prepared to suspend any further miracles in Hollywood if, in exchange, Hollywood stop making religious pictures.” Gianfranco Giagni was an AD to Mauro Bolognini on films and to Alberto Negrin in television. He has made numerous music videos for Italian and foreign artists, including Vasco Rossi, Fabio Concato, Loredana Bertè, Matia Bazar, Ron, Miguel Bosé, and Madness. He has directed TV series (Valentina, 1989; Donna, 1995) and documentaries about Rome’s Chinese community (Un cinese a Roma, 2004), the city’s Mercati generali (Un mondo a parte, 2002), and Orson Welles (Rosabella: la storia italiana di Orson Welles, which premiered in Viareggio at Noir in Festival in 1992). Other subjects were the famed costume designers Tirelli (Sartoria Tirelli: vestire il cinema, 2006), and the production designer Dante Ferretti (Dante Ferretti. Scenografo italiano, 2010), which earned Giagni a Silver Ribbon and a Globo d’oro in 2011. In 2012, he and Fabio Ferzetti co-wrote and directed the documentary Carlo!, about actor Carlo Verdone. Four years later, Giagni turned out Le scandalose – Women in Crime. He had made a medium-length film, Faits divers, set in Marseille, in 1991. He has two feature films to his credit: Il nido del ragno (1988) and Nella terra di nessuno (2001).

November 25th. The city is thronged with tourists and locals in the run-up to Christmas. Business is booming at the B&B belonging to Carmela, Lolita Lobosco’s sister. One of the guests is a Roman writer, Enrico Fasulo, who has decided to hole up in Bari for a few weeks to set to work on his new book. Carmela is drawn to her guest and cooks up all her specialities to serve him, including a superb scammaro, courtesy of her grandmother Dolò’s recipe. But the next day, the man is found dead, and the police accuse Carmela of manslaughter. Lolita is kept off the case, endures pressure from her family, and is going through a rough patch with her beau, Caruso, but none of the above stop her from doing what she does best: investigate, in order to prove her sister’s innocence once and for all. Gabriella Genisi has written numerous novels and created the character of Lolita Lobosco, protagonist of ten novels published by Sonzogno that have generated a TV series directed by Luca Miniero and starring Luisa Ranieri. The first eight are: La circonferenza delle arance (2010), Giallo ciliegia (2011), Uva noir (2012), Gioco pericoloso (2014), Spaghetti all'Assassina (2015), Mare nero (2016), Dopo tanta nebbia (2017), and I quattro cantoni (2020). This year Genisi has turned out two more Lolita Lobosco novels: Terrarossa, and Lo scammaro avvelenato e altre ricette.  Another of Genisi’s mainstays is the woman carabiniere from Italy’s Salento region, Chicca Lopez, who first appeared in the 2019 novel Pizzica amara, published by Nero Rizzoli and optioned by Fabula Pictures. In 2021, she published the second installment of that series: La regola di Santa Croce.

A young woman is found dead following an overdose in the abandoned psychiatric hospital in Aguscello, outside of Ferrara, in Emilia. Her identity is unknown. Yet in the forty-eight hours between the discovery of the body and the start of the autopsy, the young woman disappears. Actually walked way, according to one witness: a rare case of apparent death. And Inspector Nives Bonora, Emilian in every way – passionate, pragmatic, empathetic, and vivacious – comes up against the case of a ghost victim and a story rotten to the core, which sees East European criminals in cahoots with Ferrara’s upper crust. Against all expectations, Nives‘ courage, impulsiveness, and streak of folly lead her to take outrageous risks that will ultimately help her crack the case, and in her own, barely legal way. She’ll also have to face the many complications of her private life, from her relationships with her father, a retired carabiniere, and her grandmother, who brought her up, to her bond with Inspector Brandi, her hostile boss and also sometime lover. Cinzia Bomoll, with Romani roots on her mother’s side, grew up in Bologna, where she graduated with a literature degree, then moved to Rome, New York, and the Mojave Desert in California, before returning to Bologna, where she now lives. She’s been writing since a very early age, with a story in the 1998 collection Quello che ho da dirvi (edited by Giulio Mozzi, Einaudi) as her debut. She has published the novels Lei che nelle foto non sorrideva (Fazi, 2006), 69 (Fazi, 2011), and Cuori a spigoli (Ianieri, 2019). She is also a screenwriter (winner of the 2020 Solinas Award) and film and television director. She has made three feature films: Il segreto di Rahil (2007), Let’s Dance (2010), and La California (2022), selected for the Freestyle section of the 17th Rome Film Fest. La ragazza che non c’era is her first mystery novel.

In the large, dark house on the hill, a child lives all alone, all the time. Her name is Eva, she’s ten years old, and she has a governess and a Finnish au pair girl named Maja Salo for company.  There is no trace of her parents. It will be Maja who desperately seeks help from Pietro Gerber, the top hypnotist in Florence: the man who puts children to sleep. The truth is, Eva hasn’t really been alone for a while; she has an imaginary friend at her side, nameless and faceless. And this presence may be putting Eva in danger. But Pietro Gerber’s reputation is in shreds, and he’s pretty shaky himself, to a certain point. Confused and unsure of his own future, Pietro reluctantly agrees to take on Eva. More precisely: her imaginary friend. And that is when an invisible door suddenly yawns open before him, because the voice of the lost child who speaks through Eva, during hypnosis, is a voice that he knows. Above all, that voice knows Pietro. It know his past, and it seems to possess a hidden truth about something that happened one hot summer, when Pietro was a child. Because Pietro Gerber died at age eleven. And the mysterious event that happened after his death still haunts him. Donato Carrisi studied criminology and behavioral science after receiving a law degree, his thesis being on Luigi Chiatti, known as the “Monster of Foligno”. He started writing for film and television in 1999. He wrote the screenplay for Nassiryia – Per non dimenticare (Canale 5), and the story and screenplay for the thriller mini-series Era mio fratello (Raiuno). For Raitre, Carrisi wrote and hosted the prime-time Saturday program Il sesto senso. He is also a regular contributor to the Corriere della Sera. In 2009 he wrote his first novel, Il suggeritore [The Whisperer], in 2009; published by Longanese, it won the Bancarella Prize. His second novel, Il tribunale delle anime (2011) [The Vanished Ones], was shortlisted for the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award. It would be his 2012 novel, La donna dei fiori di carta, that attracted international attention. His 2013 novel L’ipotesi del male did win the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award. In 2017, Carrisi made his directorial debut with The Girl in the Fog, which won the David di Donatello for best debut film. The same year, his novel L’uomo del labirinto came out, and would be turned into a film, Into the Labyrinth, Carrisi’s second directorial turn, in 2019. In between the two films, he published another novel, Il gioco del suggeritore [The Whisperer’s Game, 2022], in 2018. This year Carrisi has completed his third film, Io sono l'abisso [I Am the Abyss], based on his novel of the same name, published in 2020. Eva, the protagonist of La casa delle luci, also appears in a children’s book, Eva e la sedia vuota, also published by Longanesi, with illustrations by Paolo D'Altan.