{"product_id":"runaway-horses-9781916725034","title":"Runaway Horses","description":"\u003cb\u003eA murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage, and a lyrical evocation of Siena and its Palio, all rolled up into one brilliant novel.\u003c\/b\u003eSiena, 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, famously described by Rick Steves as \"The World's Most Insane Horse Race\". 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. \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eWhat 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.\"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.\"---\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eOnce again, Fruttero and Lucentini have taken a seemingly innocuous place and event and delved deep into its secrets to produce a compelling story, told with sharpness of insight and in sparkling language.\" ----\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eELN European Literature Network\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAuthors: \u003cb\u003eCarlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini\u003c\/b\u003e were a well-known literary duo in Italy for several decades until Lucentini's death (by suicide) in 2002. For about forty years they co-wrote newspaper articles, literary essays, and published six groundbreaking and best-selling mystery novels. Their first novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Woman\u003c\/i\u003e, was made into a film in 1975 starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant. \u003ci\u003eRunaway Horses\u003c\/i\u003e and T\u003ci\u003ehe Lover of No Fixed Abode, \u003c\/i\u003e first published in 1980s, are the third and fourth, respectively of their novels. Translator: \u003cb\u003eGregory Dowling\u003c\/b\u003e grew up in Bristol, UK. He read English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. He moved to Italy after graduating and has lived there since 1979, teaching in Naples, Siena, Verona and eventually Venice, where he has lived since 1981. He published four thrillers in the 1980s and 1990s and then devoted himself to academic work and translation. He returned to fiction in 2015, with his novel set in 18th-century Venice, \u003ci\u003eAscension\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eThe Four Horsemen\u003c\/i\u003e, the sequel to \u003ci\u003eAscension\u003c\/i\u003e, came out in 2017.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bitter Lemon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51186206769426,"sku":"9781916725034","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_82fee112-fb05-43c8-b2ef-fbc1d518297d.jpg?v=1744616213","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/runaway-horses-9781916725034","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}