Gianrico Carofiglio
La disciplina di Penelope (Penelope's Discipline)
A novel, Mondadori, January 2021, 192 pages

N°1 bestseller

An unsolved murder and a man in search of the truth. A tough and fragile woman. The chance to get back into the game.

Penelope wakes up in a stranger’s house, after yet another wasted night. She leaves silently and alone, through the grey streets of Milan in autumn.

She used to be a prosecutor, then a mysterious accident dramatically ended her career. One day a man comes to see her, he was indicted for the murder of his wife. The case was dismissed but did not erase the terrible suspicions from which it had arisen. The man asks her to take over the case and restore his lost honour. He wants to know what to say to his daughter, a little girl, when she grows up and enquires about her mother. After an initial refusal, Penelope lets an insistent old friend of hers, a crime reporter, convince her.

A breath-taking investigation winds its way through unknown streets of the city and through memories of a life that won’t come back.

Gianrico Carofiglio creates a female figure with epic traits. A woman full of anger and painful humanity. A character who remains in our hearts, well beyond the last page and the unexpected ending.

“When the idea for the story first came up, the character was already in her city. For the drama of the plot, I needed the setting with the most metropolitan spirit that we have in Italy.” Gianrico Carofiglio, 7

Gianrico Carofiglio

Gianrico Carofiglio was born in Bari and has worked for many years as a prosecutor specializing in organized crime. He was appointed advisor of the anti-Mafia committee in the Italian Parliament in 2007 and served as a senator from 2008 to 2013. He is the author of the novels featuring the character of the defense lawyer Guido Guerrieri: Testimone inconsapevole (Involuntary Witness, 2002), Ad occhi chiusi (A Walk in the Dark, 2003, Best International Noir of the year 2007 in Germany), Ragionevoli dubbi (Reasonable Doubts, 2006), Le perfezioni provvisorie (Temporary Perfections, 2010, Premio Selezione Campiello), La regola dell’equilibrio (A Fine Line, 2014), La misura del tempo (The Measure of Time, 2019, Premio Strega 2020 finalist). Officer of the Carabinieri Pietro Fenoglio is the protagonist of another series of novels: Una mutevole verità (A Shifting Truth, 2014, Premio Scerbanenco), L’estate fredda (The Cold Summer, 2016), La versione di Fenoglio (Fenoglio’s Version, 2019).
Among his fiction works: Il passato è una terra straniera (The Past is a Foreign Land, 2004, Premio Bancarella 2005), adapted into an internationally awarded film, Né qui né altrove (Neither Here Nor Elsewhere. A Night in Bari, 2009), Non esiste saggezza (There is No Wisdom, 2010, 2020), Il silenzio dell’onda (The Silence of the Wave, 2011, finalist for Premio Strega 2012), Il bordo vertiginoso delle cose (The Vertiginous Edge of Things, 2013), La casa nel bosco (The House in the Woods, 2014), written with his brother Francesco, Passeggeri notturni (Night Passengers, 2016), Le tre del mattino (Three O’Clock in the Morning, 2017), La disciplina di Penelope (Penelope’s Discipline, 2021) and Rancore (Resentment, 2022). Among his non-fiction books: La manomissione delle parole (Manumitting Words, 2010), Con parole precise (With exact words, 2015), Con i piedi nel fango (Feet in the Mud, 2018), Della gentilezza e del coraggio (On Kindness and Courage, 2020), La nuova manomissione delle parole (2021) and L’ora del caffè (Coffe Time, 2022). Many titles are also audiobooks, read by the author. In 2020 was released L’avvocato Guerrieri, Gianrico Carofiglio’s first audio-series. He has a podcast with his daughter Giorgia, called Coffee for Two. Gianrico Carofiglio’s multi-award winner and best selling books are translated into 27 languages worldwide.

Download here Gianrico Carofiglio rights catalogue.

 

Guido Guerrieri novels

Pietro Fenoglio novels

Penelope Spada novels

Novels

Short stories collections

Essays

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