Women have always known how to deal with crimes. Don't get me wrong: those in celluloid, also because in reality, in the bad and violent world out there, the predisposition to kill each other is, at all latitudes, the prerogative of men. In this sense, there is the incipit of a beautiful story by Raymond Chandler contained in the collection "Vento rosso". And, if that weren't enough, there are statistics, dry and cold numbers, which certify how the use of brute force in the resolution of social and global conflicts is an attitude to which the Marios, Johns and Bernards tend much more. than the Jessicas and the Celines. But, in the very yellow and very black universe of literary crimes, the game of who gets rid of the most, in the most disparate ways and times, certainly ends in a draw. Without being trivial, and quoting that old English lady who exterminated more than the two world wars, some names from the very varied list of Lady Delitto are exemplary in the world of crime fiction: from Craig Rice to Ruth Rendell, from Lillian 'O Donnel to Sue Grafton and from Kim Wozencraft to Dorothy Uhnak. In Italy, then, this vein is truly enjoying excellent health, and, to the notes Rosa Teruzzi, Gabriella Genisi and Patrizia Rinaldi - to name three - should undoubtedly be added, with her "Ostaggio" (Castelvecchi), our Maria Francesca Chiappe, reporter of L'Unione Sarda and former author, with the same publisher, of that "Non è lei" with which she obtained excellent feedback from readers and critics.

Chronicler

And it is undoubtedly thanks to his pedigree as a long-standing judicial lawyer and investigative journalist, that Chiappe proves to be very familiar with the investigative matter and, therefore, to be able to exploit his professional background in the construction of plots which alongside a strong realism in journalistic, police and legal proceedings otherwise difficult to handle. Every author, every author, has her quid, and this is undoubtedly that of Maria Francesca Chiappe, who with "Ostaggio" takes us back a couple of years, to Sardinia, to Cagliari, where, while in the rest of In Italy, the restrictions due to the pandemic are still very severe, enjoying the semi-freedom of the white area, and where a young woman has disappeared from a villa on the Poetto seafront. Have they kidnapped her?

The investigation

The interest of the Police Headquarters immediately tightens around her violent husband, a faithless entrepreneur divided between the Sardinian and Lombard capitals, but for Annalisa Medda, an energetic reporter with the habit of wanting to dig an inch deeper and deeper, too many pieces do not fit in the puzzle. Then, when the suspect's mysterious and seductive lawyer flies off a cliff by the sea, just outside the city, the plot thickens even more and the reader, displaced, can only remain glued to the pages until the unpredictable truth in the the final. If only to read the beautiful descriptions that Chiappe dedicates to Cagliari, to the hidden corners of its historic centre, to its sunsets over that refinery "which gives work but takes away beauty" and, of course, to its sea, where everyone, says one of the characters in the book, even “kidnappers, traffickers, investigators” make an appointment. In short, a sea in yellow and black that Maria Francesca Chiappe/Annalisa Medda is not afraid to explore until she enters its most hidden recesses.

The book will be presented tomorrow at 19.30, seats sold out (and this says a lot about the author) at Villa Fanny in via Don Bosco in Cagliari for the Liberevento Festival with Francesco Abate.

Lorenzo Scano

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