Francesca Serafini

At the age of just thirty-three, detective Lisa Mancini has built herself a remarkable career, one she should be proud of. Then one day she up and leaves the Interpol offices in Lyon to head the police department in Montezenta, an obscure town in Italy’s Romagna region. Before she can even really settle in there, a fifteen-year-old English boy named River disappears. He had been living with his family just outside Montezenta’s medieval walls, in a free-wheeling, unconventional commune of sorts that recycles waste materials as art works. Is River really a victim of this situation, or is he fleeing from something very wrong that he did himself? To answer this question, Lisa will need to face up to the demons from her own past.

A linguist by training, Francesca Serafini got her start as a screenwriter, scripting the TV series La squadra. She co-wrote the film Don’t Be Bad with director Claudio Caligari and Giordano Meacci. She teamed up with Giordano Meacci again to write the film Fabrizio De André – Principe libero. She joined actors Valerio Mastandrea, Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, and other figures to take part in the documentary Se c’è un aldilà sono fottuto. Vita e cinema di Claudio Caligari, directed by Simone Isola and Fausto Trombetta. She has also published several books, among them Questo è il punto. Istruzioni per l’uso della punteggiatura, Di calcio non si parla, and Lui, io, noi (co-written with Dori Ghezzi and Giordano Meacci). Tre madri is her first novel.