Welcome to Litsy!

What happens when the person who raised you turns out to be a monster? Paul Auster meets Stephen King in this poetic yet disturbing investigation into the darkest corners of human nature. On August 12, 1999 an eight year-old girl, Laura, goes missing. Fourteen years later, long after all hope had been lost, she is found alive in a container truck. Luca is having dinner with his father, a well-respected anthropologist, when the police raids their home and arrests the man. The charges against professor Carlo Maria Balestri are extremely serious--could the face of Evil itself hide behind the mask of a renowned academic? The nightmare doesn't end with the arrest of the abductor. In fact, his capture marks the start of wholly new, fragile lives for the people affected by his crimes. It's now Luca's turn to be held captive by his perverse father-- in a prison made not of metal but of blood, one from which it seems impossible to escape. He becomes obsessed with Laura, who seems to resume a normal life but carries inside her the weight of an unspeakable trauma. Emotionally derailed, Luca tries to connect with her, even follows her around Milan. The two became entangled in a spiral of guilt, fear, and manipulation that, at every turn, reveals the implacable pervasiveness of evil. With prose whose power and sharpness bring to mind Truman Capote's writing, Sacha Naspini paints a harrowing, unforgettable portrait of our society and its darkest shadows.