A literary thriller, satire, a profound and witty novel – comparable to Cormac McCarthy but with more laughs. Cappellani’s best to date.
In the rural south-east of Sicily, amidst the baroque villages, a little girl has gone missing; three immigrants who have just arrived to work under the ‘caporalato’ system are fleeing across the countryside; and Ernesto, a writer in his fifties in the throes of a creative crisis – a fallen aristocrat, a very fallen one at that – has retreated to the family baglio, now a dilapidated ruin. But what was meant to be a peaceful retreat where he could rediscover his love of writing had, year after year, turned into a chaotic campsite, amid permaculture, biodynamic farming, yoga classes, run by Raffaella (cynical enough to have set it all up on purpose, as it happens) and Claudia, who wanders about half-naked, beautiful and quite mad, building traps for aliens (“they’re like rabbit traps, but bigger, and the place is teeming with aliens”).
The three immigrants find themselves caught in one of these traps; officially accused of kidnapping the little girl, they tell Ernesto a completely different story: someone wants to kill the girl and pin the blame on them.
Meanwhile, the police arrive at the baglio and the three flee to a vineyard. Before getting a clear picture of what is happening, Ernesto, Raffaella and Claudia decide not to say anything to the police.
Ernesto therefore seeks advice from Don Lou Sciortino, a Mafia boss who, out of love for his nephew, has become, shall we say, a decent person, limiting himself to laundering money through a film production company, yet remaining well-informed about what is happening in Sicily. Don Lou confirms that the three immigrants’ story is true, but cannot reveal who is behind the plot: “because, for us, it is one thing to suggest, quite another to say”.
The sweet summer countryside, full of scents, citrus fruits, carob trees and olives, turns into a dark, menacing place.
Whilst the three immigrants return to the campsite, where they are being hidden, Ernesto, Raffaella, Claudia, plus a motley crew of amateur detectives, try to solve the mystery amongst trendy bars nestled in ancient palaces teeming with cocaine-addicted architects and designers, dingy village pubs packed with farmers and alcoholic construction workers, greenhouses brimming with vegetables, beach bars, trattorias, five-star resorts, and real and fake nobles.
Until they uncover a local politician’s agenda: to scrap the new green economic initiative, prevent people from returning to live in the countryside, and recreate that climate of fear that has kept people locked up in towns and villages, because: “If people, with this bloody green economy, go back to the countryside, we’re screwed. They’ll buy chickens, grow their own veg, spend less, and need us less, and it’ll be harder for us to buy their votes for fifty euros. You’ve been banging on about this bloody countryside! You’ve got to stay in the towns and villages!”
Sales
- Gilulio Perrone Editore Italy (June 2026)
Material: PDF of Italian edition