An Innocent Gaze

"Resentment does not end with the elimination of the opponent, no, it continues to reap victims, takes root in the vital sources of our being, and then explodes... The murderer knew he was acting undisturbed, he was in the center of a shadow cone where no one could see him. He was breathing hard, he was tired but he had to complete his mission, resentment suggested it to him." Naples, Chiaja district. The death of little Gabriele, suffering from a degenerative disease and forced to live attached to machines, raises some suspicions. An anonymous letter prompts Brigadier Titta Longano to open an investigation that will lead to dig into the murky depths of the condominium where the tragedy occurred. But the threads of fate will be incredibly pulled by the Crow, a fugitive boss forced into a disability that has amplified his wickedness. This is the plot of "An Innocent Gaze" (Mursia, 9788842566687, pages 188, Euro 17.00) the noir by Paola Iannelli available in bookstores today for Mursia in the Giungla Gialla series. An intricate and captivating story that sees the return to Naples of Jenny, an attractive and unscrupulous woman, former lover of the Crow, forced to leave the Neapolitan city for having named some criminals to the authorities, but never before that of the boss. Against the backdrop of a Naples with a strong personality, like that of Jenny: mysterious, criminal but at the same time beautiful. "She missed everything about her Naples: the screams of the women of the people, the smells coming from the low parts of the alleys, the walks along via Caracciolo. Even the Vesuvius, oh yes, even that black semi-asleep cyclops ready to spit incandescent venom. Naples, a dream!" It is to see this Naples again that Jenny, now become Jolanda Mainiello, leaves the Valle D'Aosta and finds herself inevitably catapulted into her past. Paola Iannelli will present "An Innocent Gaze" in national preview on Saturday, May 4th at 11:30 am at LaFeltrinelli Libri e Musica of Via Santa Caterina a Chiaia 23, in Naples. Paola Iannelli is a teacher of Spanish language and literature and a journalist: she edits the Magma letterario column for the magazine Quicampiflegrei and writes for the Thrillernord blog. After a doctoral thesis on post-modern Neapolitan noir, she published the novels "Paradise Has No Right Angle" (2021) and "Amarga" (2022), winner of the Publio Virgilio Marone Prize 2023. Finalist at Garfagnana in Giallo in 2022, the following year she won the "Stories at the Last Minute" contest with "Beyond the Garden."