The Disappearance of Signora Giulia

A delightfully Italian mystery, with undercurrent of satire, which keeps the reader guessing.

Every Thursday for three years, Signora Giulia takes the train to Milan to visit her daughter. But one Thursday she simply disappears. And the case is left in your hands. You're a born detective, but you have so many unanswered questions - how can a young, beautiful high society woman just vanish into thin air? Why does her husband - a prominent criminal lawyer and much older man - know nothing about it? And who was she really visiting during those trips to Milan?

For Detective Sciancalepre, the mystery is darker and more tangled than he imagined. Shadows are lurking in the grounds behind Giulia's house. Incriminating letters are exchanging hands. And no one is who they seem. Every twist and turn takes us closer to Giulia - and further from the truth....

Piero Chiara (born in 1913) worked as a court employee until the outbreak of Word War Two. When the Fascist authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in 1944 he fled to Switzerland, where his first work of literature, a collection of poetry entitled

Incantavi, was published in 1945. After the war he returned to Italy, and became one of the most celebrated writers of the post-war period. The winner of more than a dozen literary prizes - including the 1964 Campiello and the 1979 Bancarello - he is widely read and studied in his home country, and his stories and novels have been adapted for both television and film. Piero Chiara died in 1986.

The Disappearance of Signora Giulia is his first book to be translated into English.