Runaway Horses

Carlo Fruttero, Franco Lucentini, Gregory Dowling

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English

Bitter Lemon Press
01 March 2025

Fiction & Literature; Crime & Mystery; Thriller & suspense

Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, visited by all discerning travellers to Tuscany, is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages held every summer in the centre of the town. Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria are unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race. They are even witnesses to the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey, found dead the day before the race. A murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage and a decadent society, and a history of the Palio all rolled up into one brilliant novel. What begins as a listless excursion to a medieval equestrian competition turns into a hallucinatory nightmare for Maggione and his wife, awakening their dormant libido for each other but, more dangerously, for others in their entourage.

The death of the jockey is only one of the mysterious goings-on to be solved. It soon becomes clear that there are no bystanders in the Palio.

By: Carlo Fruttero, Franco Lucentini
Translated by: Gregory Dowling
Imprint: Bitter Lemon Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm,
ISBN: 9781916725034
ISBN 10: 1916725031
Pages: 180
Publication Date: 01 March 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Carlo Fruttero (1926-2012) and Franco Lucentini (1920-2002) are legendary authors in Europe, known as pioneers of the modern crime genre. Runaway Horses and The Lover of No Fixed Abode are two of six works of fiction they wrote together and have never been available in English before. Gregory Dowling grew up in Bristol and read English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. Gregory lives in Venice. He is a celebrated translator from Italian, a novelist (The Four Horsemen and Ascension, both set in Venice). and a local university professor.

Reviews for Runaway Horses

KIrkus Reviews: ""A macabre Mediterranean mystery bubbling with romantic intrigue.The comedy of licentious manners, going hand in hand with Enzo's probe and the authors' rich description of the Palio and the equestrian world, all add up to a colorfully offbeat mystery. Fruttero and Lucentini's sophisticated drollery and Italian sensibility will particularly delight fans of the prolific Andrea Camilleri, whose final Inspector Montalbano novel was published in 2021.Reviews of The Lover of No Fixed Abode by the same authors: ""Doyens of the Italian detective story, Fruttero and Lucentini, offer a perfect blend of the comedy of manners and the macabre; in short, very Mediterranean mysteries."" Tim Parks, author of Hotel Milano and Italian Life "" A labyrinth full of shapeshifting and ambiguity, sometimes sinister, often hilarious, for which Venice in all its varying moods offers the perfect setting."" Jonathan Keates, author of La Serenissima: The Story of Venice""An undiscovered gem, finally available in English... witty, moving and enthrallingly atmospheric."" Philip Gwynne Jones, author of The Venetian Legacy ""Finally in a vivid English translation, the classic imaginative Italian love story and mystery that brings 1980s Venice to brilliant life."" David Hewson, author of The Medici Murders