1963. The lights of Rome shimmer at the time of La Dolce Vita. Cameras flash between the slick, nervous hands of the paparazzi, scandal is the other name for social life. In the cafes everybody stays up late, the most beautiful dream is the one dreamed together. A German girl is also dreaming: she is twenty-three years old, her name is Greta, and she wants to be an actress. Until, one day in May, she is found stabbed to death in a building near Via Veneto. Beneath the dazzling surface of the capital, in fact, lies the abyss. Marcello Montecchi, 30, a brilliant byline of a prestigious Roman newspaper, knows this well. His editor asked him to follow up the case without knowing that he actually met Greta during fleeting encounters flavored with whiskey and cigarettes. And now he will have to delve into the secret and dark side of that elusive girl.
Through a new and fascinating narrative lens Giancarlo De Cataldo, drawing inspiration from an inextricable cold case that marked the Sixties in Italy, tells us about the obsessions and the mysteries of the eternal city.
Giancarlo De Cataldo
Giancarlo De Cataldo was born in Taranto. He lives and works in Rome where he’s a judge of the First Appeal Assizes Court. He has been judge in many important and well-known cases, dealing with Mafia, murder, terrorism. His most famous novel is Romanzo Criminale (2002), that became a movie directed by Michele Placido and an equally successful TV series, directed by Stefano Sollima (also director of TV series Gomorra, based on Roberto Saviano’s novel). The series was broadcast by Channel 4 in UK. The English translation of the novel was published in 2015 by Corvus Publishing. Three of his short stories are translated in the anthologies Italian crime (Bitter Lemon Press), Cocaine and Judges (MacLehose Press). His novel The father and the foreigner is published by Europa Editions. He also wrote short stories, graphic novels, and scripts for cinema and TV networks.
His novel Suburra, co-written with the journalist Carlo Bonini, has been adapted for cinema by director Stefano Sollima and it is available worldwide on Netflix. He is story-editor of the Netflix TV series based on Suburra (currently at its second season, and renewed for a third). Suburra is published in English by Europa Editions. His most recent novels are L’agente del caos (2018), Alba nera (2019), Quasi per caso (2019, Premio Ippolito Nievo 2021), Io sono il castigo (2020), Tre passi per un delitto (2020, with Cristina Cassar Scalia e Maurizio De Giovanni), Un cuore sleale (2020), Il suo freddo pianto (2021), La svedese (2022).