From Marcello Simoni to Vargas Llosa, new releases in bookstores

Here's a selection of new releases in bookstores, including novels, essays, investigative books, and reports, presented this week by AdnKronos.

'Mimica' (Fazi) by Sebastian Fitzek

Berlin-based author Sebastian Fitzek's breathtaking new thriller, "Mimicry," has been released just in time to become one of the hottest beach reads. A slight twitch at the corner of the mouth, the slightest movement of the pupil are enough to reveal a person's true self: Hannah Herbst is the German expert on facial expressions, specializing in the secret signals of the human body. As a police consultant, she has already convicted several violent criminals. But just as she's struggling with the aftermath of memory loss following an operation, she finds herself facing the most horrific case of her career: a woman has confessed to brutally murdering her family. Only her youngest son, Paul, survived. After the confession, the mother managed to escape from prison. Is she searching for her son to complete her mission? Hannah Herbst has only the short video of the confession to frame her mother and save Paul. There's just one problem: the killer in the video is Hannah herself!

'The Root of Evil' (NN Editore) by Adam Rapp

'The Root of Evil' (NN Editore) is the new novel by American writer and playwright Adam Rapp, which explores the small cracks that mark the fate of a respectable family; furrows that can become abysses or open to light, if one finds the courage to ask for help.

The story begins in Elmira, New York, during the summer of 1951. Thirteen-year-old Myra Larkin accepts a ride after church from a charming young man claiming to be Mickey Mantle, the Yankees' promising youngster. That night, Myra's neighbors are brutally murdered, and suspicion falls on a stranger who looks very much like her new friend. It is the first in a series of crime stories that intersect the Larkins' lives, as each of them pursues the American dream in their own way. Myra, raising her son Ronan alone after her husband suffers a psychotic break, is the only one who maintains contact with her family: with Lexy, a career woman, and Fiona, a perennial rebel and failed Broadway actress; and with Alec, shadowy and elusive, tormented by the ghosts of a childhood marked by abuse and the indifference of his mother, the staunchly Catholic Ava. And when Ava herself begins receiving disturbing anonymous postcards, omens of terrible things to come, only Myra, with the help of her son, will have the strength to face the dark evil that is engulfing her family. The Root of Evil depicts an America where daily life is steeped in violence, and home is both refuge and danger.

'The Secret Tower of the Eagles' (Newton Compton) by Marcello Simoni

Intrigue, power plays, dynastic plots, and two families united by a secret are at the heart of Marcello Simoni's new historical thriller, 'The Secret Tower of Eagles,' published by Newton Compton.

The novel is set in 1127, on the coast of northwestern Sicily, where two families of Norman lineage, one Christian and the other pagan, one tied to Sicily and the other to the French county of Évreux, are about to intertwine their destinies. Their encounter takes place under the scorching Mediterranean sun, on the beach of Sagitta Castle. On one side, Baron Galgano and his daughter Altruda, lords of those lands. On the other, three brothers recently disembarked from a dragon-headed ship: young Folco, the procuress Fresenda, and a baby named Abelardo. Against a backdrop of war, betrayal, and dynastic tension, the newcomers must quickly adapt to the power games of the Normans of Sicily to find a place in that kingdom of treacherous beauty. But for the courageous Folco of Évreux, marrying Altruda will not be enough to guarantee a future for his relatives. Baron Galgano is, in fact, a man of many secrets. The most frightening of which lies hidden in the oldest tower of his castle.

'Twenty' (Einaudi) by Mario Vargas Llosa

It is a melancholy farewell that the Peruvian Nobel Prize-winning writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who died last April, entrusted to his latest novel 'Venti', released in Italy on July 1st by Einaudi.

"An incurable conservative": this is how his friend Osorio describes the centenarian narrator of this novel. As a true nostalgic, he, along with a few other "relics" like himself, couldn't miss the demonstration against the closure of the Ideal cinema, one of the last remaining theaters in Madrid. The event was held amidst general indifference: after all, the younger generations aren't concerned about the disappearance of that obsolete place, along with museums, bookstores, libraries, and theaters. Nowadays, a screen is enough to put the world at their fingertips, and art takes the form of digital wonder. The era when reading a classic or admiring a painting in person provided the profound satisfaction the narrator longs for seems far away. He also misses his ex-wife Carmencita, abandoned for a mad, fleeting love. These, and many others, are the reflections on the past and present that the elderly man loses himself in as, after the demonstration, he wanders in search of his home. It's never happened to him before, but now he just can't remember the address. Alone, lost, suffering from the terrible flatulence he's long suffered, the old man passes over and over through streets and squares he can barely distinguish, occasionally stopping on a bench to rest, trapped in the labyrinthine center of a surreal yet perfectly recognizable Madrid. It's getting later and later, and the agonizing thought of a night out in the open looms, and the next morning the phone will ring unanswered when Osorio calls for the usual mutual check-in on life, and all those winds that would test anyone's spirits... What surprises does this complicated day hold for the forgetful narrator? Could a meeting with destiny be missing?

"The Tarot Murders" (Giunti) by Barbara Baraldi

Barbara Baraldi's new novel, 'Gliomicidio dei tarocchi' (The Tarot Murders), is a magnetic and visionary thriller that blends logic and mystery, just released by Giunti.

Trieste is a city accustomed to silence, but this time it's silent out of fear. A faceless killer has committed two crimes: the victims appear to have nothing in common, except that two tarot cards, Temperance and the Wheel of Fortune, are found at the crime scenes. As soon as Commissioner Emma Bellini sees them, a chill runs through her. Those cards are part of a deck handmade by her sister Maia, an artist and a devotee of esotericism, with whom she hasn't spoken in years. Emma can't avoid the confrontation now. She must find Maia, question her, understand what links the deck to the murders. Maia, however, is terrified: she reveals that she destroyed all the cards long ago, after a dramatic event that upended her life and led her to forever renounce divination. A trauma that left a word etched in her memory, like a distant echo or a branding: Safir. When a third body is found, with another card beside it, the investigation becomes a race against time. While Emma follows the logical threads of a puzzle that seems to defy rationality, Maia turns to her tarot cards to try to make peace with the past. And, perhaps, to find her sister.

'With the utmost discretion' (Guanda) by Arnaldur Indriðason

Icelandic crime novelist Arnaldur Indriðason returns to Italian bookstores with his new novel 'With Maximum Discretion', published by Guanda.

A heavy snowfall has been raging in Reykjavik for days, blanketing everything with white, and shows no sign of abating. Going out in such conditions is inadvisable, but the elderly woman who shows up at the police station that morning believes she's dealing with something truly important. Among her recently deceased husband's belongings, she's just found a 1940s Luger, hidden behind a toolbox in the garage. She'd never seen it before; her husband didn't hunt, and he had no reason to own a gun. Forensic scientists quickly determine that it's the weapon from a 1955 murder in the working-class Múlar neighborhood, the victim of which was a twenty-year-old named Garðar. However, there's nothing to connect the deceased to that murder. So, who did the Luger belong to? Konráð vividly remembers seeing an identical weapon in his father's hands... All the clues point to old acquaintances of the detective, criminals who have run and covered up sordid pedophile rings for years. The net tightens around the culprit, and Konráð feels he's one step closer to the truth. But it will be a truth difficult to accept.

'Summer of Spies' (Longanesi) by Tess Gerritsen

Californian writer Tess Gerritsen returns to bookstores with the thriller 'Summer of Spies', published by Longanesi.

Maggie Bird thought Purity was paradise. A quiet village on the Maine coast where she could enjoy retirement, gazing at the ocean and chatting about books with friends, sipping a good martini. What could possibly ruin the idyll? Easy: first the disappearance of a wealthy family's teenage daughter, then a friend and neighbor who is wrongly accused, while the police fumble in the dark. The icing on the cake: a decomposed corpse rising from the waters of a pond. Maggie and the rest of the Martini Club, joined by their retired CIA colleagues, have no choice but to put aside their books and cocktails and start investigating again. But the situation is even more complex and dangerous than it seems at first glance, because all the events that have thrown the town of Purity into chaos are connected. Long-buried secrets are ready to resurface from the sands of the past, and the Lady of Spies must uncover the truth before it's too late.

'The Cat Had a Hand in It' (Sellerio) by Dolores Hitchens

Sellerio is bringing back to the bookstores 'The Cat Got Its Hand', one of the detective novels that American writer Dolores Hitchens dedicated to the "cat mysteries" between 1939 and 1956.

The arrival of an unexpected letter upends the orderly life of the Murdock sisters and their cat Samantha in Los Angeles. The letter comes from Prudence Mills, the niece of an old friend, who hopes to rely on Miss Rachel's investigative skills. Prudence is terrified: a few days earlier, a disturbing drawing of a mutilated hand, accompanied by cryptic writing, was left under the Mills' door. Rachel's curiosity is immediately piqued, and Jennifer's anxiety, fearing her sister will become involved in a dangerous new investigation. Her protests, however, are of little avail: the sprightly seventy-year-old, donning her signature taffeta, has already packed her bags and a picnic basket for Samantha and is ready to join Prudence Mills in Crestline, where she lives with her sisters. Surrounded by snow and silence, Crestline seems the perfect place for a restorative vacation, but the atmosphere quickly becomes charged with tension and mystery. Amid the snow-capped peaks, an oppressive sense of menace looms, reinforced by unexpected discoveries: Prudence's scarred face, the arrival of new, indecipherable notes, visits from strangers in the night. And a house, the Schuylers', perhaps too close to the Mills sisters' cottage. Amid shady dealings, lies, resentments, and family secrets, Miss Rachel must confront two inexplicable murders and launch an investigation. Her only weapon, as always: her acute ability to read the human soul. A constant ally, more or less conscious, is her cat Samantha, with her silky black fur and green eyes full of complicity. As the case seems to veer into new and inexplicable orbits, Miss Rachel's life will be put in grave danger by a distant enemy, capable, however, of observing her through "the barriers of time and death." An enemy against whom the desperate protection of the gruff Lieutenant Mayhew will have little power. "The Cat Had a Hand in It" is a novel of mystery and suspense, written with the playful elegance that distinguishes the cases of the elderly detective and her inseparable cat. While it's true that all felines, indifferent to pleasing others, tend toward brooding introversion, Samantha the cat—as Joyce Carol Oates wrote—has "just the kind of personality suited to objective investigation and the unmasking of deception." In other words: she has a hand in it. Hard to resist.

'If Books Could Kill...' (Leggereditore) by Kate Carlisle

While traveling in Scotland, bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright becomes embroiled in a new case in "If Books Could Kill... An Antiquarian Investigates," the second novel in Kate Carlisle's New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mysteries series.

Brooklyn Wainwright, a seasoned book restorer, is thrilled to be attending the world-famous Edinburgh Book Fair. Until her ex, Kyle McVee, shows up with a bombshell. He's come into possession of an original copy of a scandalous manuscript that could change history and humiliate the beloved British monarchy. Trying to get Kyle's story out of her head, Brooklyn decides to take a late-night stroll through the city. Unfortunately, she soon finds herself face to face with a dead body: that of her ex, Kyle. The police are convinced she's guilty, but with a whole convention of suspects, Brooklyn has time and space to conduct her own investigation. To solve the case, she must discover whether the motive for the murder is tied to a two-hundred-year-old secret or something far more personal...