“Giampaolo Simi, master of suspense far beyond the oiled mechanisms of noir” — La Repubblica

“Giampaolo Simi’s characters move before the reader’s eyes, illuminated by a shifting light, born from the psychological finesse of his pen” — Federica De Paolis, l’Espresso

Versilia, Tuscany. Pietro Valvassori is a lawyer in his 50s and an ex rugby player. He rides his black bike, wears an earring and bizarre ties. He has a reputation as a defender of the weak and is the most successful lawyer in Tuscany specialized in women victims of violence. Suddenly and oddly one day, he decides to make a kind of U-turn and, for the first time in his career, he agrees to defend a suspect for a femicide: Leandro, the long-term partner of Lorena, a promising real estate agent who was strangled in a property she was representing exclusively. The police investigation, indeed, points right to Leandro, who declares himself innocent and entrusts Valvassori with the defense.

The night before the official police interrogation, the lawyer meets with his client. Pietro does everything he can to undermine the suspect’s confidence, dragging him into a ring of questions, in which the reality of the facts turns out to be a game of shattered mirrors. Who is Leandro really and who was Lorena? What cracks their relationship was hiding and why does the police suspect the victim’s partner? Not only the truth about Lorena’s death will emerge from this discussion, but also the enigma of romantic relationships, of the dynamics of love, from passionate fervor to the discomfort of addiction, will come to surface and reveal a subtle, disembodied cruelty. A cruelty that unites those who pursue and desire each other and those who have stopped desiring themselves.

Giampaolo Simi delivers his most intense novel so far. A single long night stage in which a double tension meanders: should the reader believe a man accused of murdering his partner or his lawyer who demands a forthright sincerity from his client that seems to coincide only with a full confession? In the end, after the darkness, the dawn will finally bring light.