Synopsis

At just thirty-three years old, Commissioner Lisa Mancini already has an extraordinary career behind her. She boasts so many successes in Italy and abroad, but these successes create an aura of mystery around her the day she decides to leave her post at Interpol in Lyon to head the police station in Montezenta, a small town in Romagna with the strengths and weaknesses of a small Italian town, and of every small town in the world. No one knows the reason for Lisa's move. All we know about her is that, after completing routine paperwork, she spends her days locked in her office playing Candy Crush on her cell phone. Until River is reported missing: a fifteen-year-old of English origin who lives with his family in a small village just outside the medieval walls of Montezenta. A libertarian and nonconformist community that transforms waste materials into works of art, thus attracting the hostility and prejudice of the rest of the population. Is River—a perfect student, capable of winning everyone's love—a victim, or is he running away from something he himself is responsible for? To answer this question, Lisa must battle the demons of her past and transform her search for him into a breathless journey within herself. In a novel brimming with courageous choices and carefully chosen words, songs that linger in our thoughts and films that leave us speechless, Lisa Mancini is a character who speaks to us, our fears, our most passionate affections.