"There’s been a murder in Bologna, with its streets covered in snow and its streetcars that clang past on their tracks and people filling the restaurants to taste the Christmas tortellini. A college professor’s beautiful wife has drowned in the bathtub in her husband’s pied-à-terre. The police want to know who did it, which is why they need a bloodhound like De Luca, who finally seems to have a classic murder investigation on his hands, replete with clues and traces and fingerprints and times when things happened. This won’t be the case, naturally…" [Carlo Lucarelli]

Carlo Lucarelli made his literary debut in 1990 with Carte Blanche, the first in a long series of detective novels including Via delle Oche, winner of the 1996 Scerbanenco Award. Dividing his time between literature, television, film and radio, not to mention music, his passion, he owes no small part of his success to the main characters in his most famous series: inspectors Coliandro, De Luca and Grazia Negro, played onscreen, in films and on television, by Giampaolo Morelli, Alessandro Preziosi and Lorenza Indovina respectively. A writer for comics and film as well, the films Almost Blue by Alex Infascelli and Lupo mannaro by Antonio Tibaldi were based on his novels. In 2012 Lucarelli made his directorial debut with the film L’isola del angelo caduto, which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. He is a contributor to several newspapers and a founder of "Gruppo 13", an association of mystery writers from Romagna; he also edits the online magazine Incubatoio 16. He teaches creative writing at the Scuola Holden in Turin and also at the Due Palazzi Penitentiary in Padua. Lucarelli has written six novels with criminologist Massimo Picozzi, all published by Mondadori: Serial Killer (2003), Scena del crimine (2005), Tracce criminali e La Nera (2006), Il genio criminale (2009), and Sex crimes (2011); the two authors are currently at work on a new book that will be coming out shortly.