Stella Spada, a prominent character from the books by, returns Lorena Lusettiin a book entitled Virginia’s shadowpublished by Damster editions.
Who is Stella Spada? She is an investigator from Bologna, here on her tenth investigation, a severe woman, full of guilt, who often talks with the ghost of Silvia, who died too soon.
She has an investigation agency, located in the center of Bologna, and she works with Giacomo, an unpaid but highly appreciated intern expert in social media and communications; and Alda who does the cleaning in the agency – Stella’s house in the company of her big dog.
I love getting up very early in the morning, before life around me starts moving, when most of the inhabitants of this city are immersed in their world of dreams and nightmares. I love this silence, this calm.
Here he is dealing with two parallel investigations, particularly complicated and complex. The first case looks to a distant past, known in Bologna as the famous Galluzzo case:
This is the famous case of the Bolognese “Romeo and Juliet”, who knows how many times you have heard about it: Virginia Galluzzi and Alberto Carbonesi. (…) They lived in the mid-twelfth century, they were part of two important Bolognese families aligned on different fronts and always at war with each other: the Galluzzi were with the Guelphs, and therefore the papacy, while the Carbonesi were Ghibellines and sided with the emperor. The two boys in question fell madly in love and got married when the Galluzzis realized they washed away the shame in a bloodbath, killed Alberto and his family and brought Virginia home. The poor girl hanged herself immediately afterwards from the window of the tower which still stands today in Corte de’ Galluzzi.
A descendant wants to rehabilitate the figure of Virginia, and above all that of the Galluzzi family. He therefore demands from Stella a burden that is onerous and not easy to resolve. Will she be able to re-establish the truth in such distant events?
The other case they have to deal with is equally unusual: a boy prepared dinner for his parents, and tried to poison them all.
The mother, the only survivor, tries to rehabilitate her son, who survived, and save him from an infamous accusation, which, however, seems at first sight to be the only one possible. Will it be just what the mother thinks? Or is he really guilty?
Stella investigates with her own personal method, trying to get to the core of the problems:
The plan is the same as always, we need to interrogate the suspects. There are some solid points to keep in mind: it’s not fun, interesting cases are rare, most of the time you will spend on boring stakeouts and even more boring chats with witnesses and suspects, unbearable and even more tedious than stakeouts.
A genre read, very intriguing and compelling. Reading is suitable for lovers of the noir genre; for those who have already read the previous books by this author, a delightful confirmation; for others an excellent literary discovery. The characters are beautiful and likeable; of great power is the investigation that turns to the past, which drags the reader towards atmospheres and environments distant in time, but rich in charm and curiosity. A great read, interesting and curious.
