The City of the Living, by Nicola Lagioia

Landing neighbor unexpected monstrosities. Jekyll Doctors who may not yet know that they are Mr Hyde. And that when they are, it is not that there has been any transformation. It will be because of that old saying that can make your skin stand on end "I am human and nothing human is foreign to me", however atrocious it may be in this world.

The animal being, from the most domestic to the fiercest, does not know treachery or animosity. It is a matter of that nature that has the eyes of the predator in front and that of the possible victims on the sides, so that they can see them arrive...

The human being is never seen to arrive. And every new day that dawns a new monster appears from the most unexpected place. The testimonies of the atrocious hurt, the simple idea of ​​looking at the facts (suspended between the chemistry of drugs and the conscience given over to the abyss), frightens.

In March 2016, in an apartment on the outskirts of Rome, two young men from a good family spent several days partying, getting high on cocaine, pills and alcohol. They decided to invite someone and after calling several friends who couldn't or didn't answer, they found Luca Varani, a boy they barely knew. They offered him drugs and money in exchange for sex. They had fun until they began to torture him and ended up killing him with knives and hammer blows. He was 23 years old, he was the son of a humble family on the outskirts, a good kid who made a living as best he could. Nobody understood why they did it, there were no answers for so much horror. From prison, one of the murderers said that "they wanted to know how he felt when he killed someone." They were 28 and 29 years old: Manuel Foffo, from a family of merchants, and Marco Prato, a well-known public relations man from Rome's gay night, son of a university professor.

El writer Nicola Lagioia He became obsessed with the case. She had just received the Strega Prize for her previous novel, the most important prize in Italy, and she dedicated four years of her life to this story. She spoke with all those involved, with the friends and relatives of the three boys, agreed to the investigation and trial and even corresponded with one of the culprits. She plunged into the darkest of the Roman night and entered the inaccessible Roman bourgeoisie. The result is a major literary chronicle: an investigation of human nature under the silence of the empty streets of the eternal city.

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