Years and years ago, Lorenza was a headstrong beauty who spelled trouble for any man. There is no trace of that Lorenza in the woman Guido Guerrieri now sees in his office, one afternoon in late winter. The charisma is long gone; she is a woman defeated by life. The years have taken their toll on her, and to make matters worse, her son Iacopo is in prison on a murder charge. Guido has his doubts, but takes on the case anyway, as a way, perhaps, to pay a poignant homage to the ghosts of the past, or the heady freedom of youth. So begins, reluctantly, a legal thriller packed with plot twists, a mesmerizing descent into the insidious and at times lethal inner workings of the justice system.
Gianrico Carofiglio (Bari, 1961 made his novel-writing debut in 2002, with Testimone inconsapevole (Involuntary Witness). This would be the first of a series of novels featuring lawyer Guido Guerrieri, the character who would also appear in Ad occhi chiusi (A Walk in the Dark), Ragionevoli dubbi (Reasonable Doubts), Le perfezioni provvisorie (Temporary Perfections), La regola dell'equilibrio (A Fine Line), and most recently La misura del tempo. In 2004 Testimone inconsapevole and Ad occhi chiusi were turned into TV movies directed by Alberto Sironi and starring Emilio Solfrizzi. Carofiglio’s other novels include Il passato è una terra straniera (The Past is a Foreign Country) (2005 Bancarella Prize), on which the 2008 film of the same name by Daniele Vicari, starring Elio Germano and Michele Rondino, was based, and Il silenzio dell’onda (The Silence of the Wave, 2011), shortlisted for the 2012 Strega Award. In 2007 Carofiglio co-wrote the graphic novel Cacciatori nelle tenebre with his brother Francesco. They teamed up again on La casa nel bosco (The House in the Woods). In 2010 he wrote La manomissione delle parole, which led to a stage adaptation in which he himself appeared. In 2014 his novel Una mutevole verità (A Changing Truth) won the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award. It introduces the character Marshall Fenoglio, who also appears in L’estate fredda (The Cold Summer) and most recently in La versione di Fenoglio.
