Letter to Lorenzo - Hardcover

"Begin with a bang", Amanda Prantera's narrator Juliet More advises herself, and indeed she does: with the bang which claims the life of her husband, Italian industrialist Lorenzo Gherardi. But it's the last explosion in the book, as Juliet quietly starts to unravel the mystery of her husband's death: why was Lorenzo at the wheel of a Fiat van in the middle of the night, apparently cradling a bomb in his lap? While the slimy investigating coroner Carosi is insinuating that Lorenzo was a left-wing terrorist, Juliet grabs at the idea he was murdered by neo-Fascists. And while enduring the official investigation, Juliet has to cope with her larger-than-life and typically Italian mother-in-law Elvira ...Signora Giulietta is an endearingly uncertain guide to the strange events in her life. While she travels across Europe in the wake of the tragedy, we shadow the path of a woman who loses not only her husband, but all her social bearings: an Englishwoman suddenly left unhinged in a very alien culture. And through her verbal rambling, we are forced to step into the emotional maze provoked by her barely-acknowledged grief. It may begin with a bang, but the pleasures of Letters to Lorenzo are gentle and gently unnerving. --Alan Stewart