In a cave chapel on the outskirts of Bari, a body is found: a middle-aged male, lying face up in front of the apse, impeccably dressed. A snake on top of the body is dead as well. The Bari 3 crime squad arrives on the scene and the CSIs get to work. Conspicuous by his absence, Inspector Gerri Esposito has taken two personal days – almost unheard of, for him – to attend to some pressing business of his own. When he returns to the office, they are all grasping at straws, the victim as yet not ID’d and the investigation going nowhere fast. Meanwhile, Gerri has to grapple with his own past, which keeps coming back to haunt him from the inner recesses of his psyche, where he has desperately tried to lock it away.

Giorgia Lepore is an archaeologist and art historian who lives in Martina Franca and teaches art history to high schoolers in Fasano. She wrote her first novel, L’abitudine al sangue (Fazi), in 2009. In 2015, E/O published her first novel featuring Inspector Gerri Esposito, I figli sono pezzi di cuore. Now the fourth installment in that series, Forse è così che si diventa uomini was preceded by Angelo che sei il mio custode (2016, Mariano Romiti Prize) and Il compimento è la pioggia (2018). Starting this year, Inspector Esposito’s investigations have become a TV series: Gerri, directed by Giuseppe Bonito, written by Donatella Diamanti and Sofia Assirelli, and airing on Raiuno.