Almost By Accident

Premio Ippolito Nievo 2021

A city in revolt. A young officer accused of murder. A race against time to save him from an execution.

Quasi per caso is set in the fiery days of the Roman Republic of 1849, in a city under siege awaiting the invasion, in which historical figures and imaginary murderers wander around and the private affairs of a handful of solitary and contentious heroes intertwine with the dream of the unification of Italy. The protagonists are Emiliano Mercalli of Saint-Just, a young officer of the Piedmontese Royal Police, a tenacious bloodhound, his beloved Naide, doctor and ex-actress, a free and independent woman, and Gualtiero Lancefroid, eccentric scientist. In the Risorgimento, the most luminous and neglected time in our national history, I am fascinated by the epic, the faith of the young fighters, the intrigue, the memory of courageous women who challenged the most obscure social conventions and anticipated the feminism of the following century.

As for the historical mystery, today it is one of the happiest territories for a writer, who doesn’t have to to deal, page after page, line by line, with printouts and DNA. And when the “forensics” of the time comes into play they do so with test tubes but also and above all with logic and intelligence. Thus, the crime and the investigation can finally be told once again for what they have always been, after all: a challenge between good and evil that develops in the realm of distorted passions. Whether it is interest or desire, it’s a matter of human beings, not algorithms.

Giancarlo De Cataldo

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Publication date: 12.11.2019
Publisher: Mondadori - Il giallo

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