When the sad, beautiful Signora Giulia goes missing without a trace from her Lake Como villa home, it is her husband who reports her disappearance to the detective Sciancalepre, and so the search begins - one that takes Sciancalepre beneath the tranquil surface of local bourgeois society, a world of snobbery and secrets, while mysterious shadows lurk in the grounds of the family villa . . . As his investigation gathers pace this atmospheric classic detective story becomes a thrilling game of legal cat and mouse.
'One of the best detective stories ever written in Italy... enriched by a recognisable portrait of human weakness, and characters who remain long in the reader' s memory' - Renzo Montagnoli
'Until the final pages, the reader devours the book with a hunger provoked only by the finest books and authors. Right up to the last word, anything is possible, but one thing is certain: this is a great Piero Chiara' - Paola Biribanti
Born in 1913, in a town on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy, Piero Chiara worked as a court employee until the outbreak of Word War Two. When the Fascist authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in 1944 he fled to Switzerland, where his first work of literature, a collection of poetry entitled Incantavi, was published in 1945. After the war he returned to Italy, and became one of the most celebrated writers of the post-war period. The winner of more than a dozen literary prizes - including the 1964 Campiello and the 1979 Bancarello - he is widely read and studied in his home country, and his stories and novels have been adapted for both television and film. Piero Chiara died in 1986. The Disappearance of Signora Guilia is his first book to be translated into English.
When the sad, beautiful Signora Giulia goes missing without a trace from her Lake Como villa home, it is her husband who reports her disappearance to the detective Sciancalepre, and so the search begins - one that takes Sciancalepre beneath the tranquil surface of local bourgeois society, a world of snobbery and secrets, while mysterious shadows lurk in the grounds of the family villa . . . As his investigation gathers pace this atmospheric classic detective story becomes a thrilling game of legal cat and mouse.
Reviews
'One of the best detective stories ever written in Italy... enriched by a recognisable portrait of human weakness, and characters who remain long in the reader' s memory' - Renzo Montagnoli
'Until the final pages, the reader devours the book with a hunger provoked only by the finest books and authors. Right up to the last word, anything is possible, but one thing is certain: this is a great Piero Chiara' - Paola Biribanti
Author
Born in 1913, in a town on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy, Piero Chiara worked as a court employee until the outbreak of Word War Two. When the Fascist authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in 1944 he fled to Switzerland, where his first work of literature, a collection of poetry entitled Incantavi, was published in 1945. After the war he returned to Italy, and became one of the most celebrated writers of the post-war period. The winner of more than a dozen literary prizes - including the 1964 Campiello and the 1979 Bancarello - he is widely read and studied in his home country, and his stories and novels have been adapted for both television and film. Piero Chiara died in 1986. The Disappearance of Signora Guilia is his first book to be translated into English.
