Evil does not need noble reasons.

This, in my opinion, is the essence of the story of Mario Pietrantoni, a boy who, thanks to his incredible talent, distinguished himself from others, but whose life was cut short precisely at its happiest moment.
Mario, the son of farmers, had a very different destiny: he would have become a cyclist and achieved numerous victories. This is what Mario desires, and as soon as he gets his first racing bike, he begins to rack up the miles, and with them come the first victories, the first triumphs. At the height of his career, however, Mario is murdered, and the case of his death is entrusted to Gregorio Linguiti, a detective who had always considered the young man as the son he never had.
The story of Mario Pietrantoni's life alternates with Gregorio's investigations, and this parallelism in the narrative aroused in me a certain curiosity to discover who Mario's killer was and why he was killed. Then there is the story of Carlo, the protagonist's father, a weak man incapable of asserting himself, who commits suicide after his son, for whom he had made so many sacrifices and thanks to whom his life had not been so insignificant, turned his back on him.
The story is also enriched by the stories of other characters, such as Carlo's or his grandmother Antonia, the landlady of the Pietrantoni household whose decisions are unquestionable, or Caterina, for whom Mario would have done who knows what. Furthermore, the author narrates the life of Gregorio, who, thanks to his keen eye and his culture, brilliantly analyzes the living conditions and thoughts of the inhabitants of Mario's hometown, lending a critical note to the novel.
I criticize the author for the overly recurring interior monologues, which, while capable of giving the characters personality, make the narrative slow-moving and overly focused on personal reflections.
Overall, it is a novel that, in its simplicity, has managed to capture many aspects of life at the time, making us understand the evil that lies in the story and that still persists in today's society, even though it has evolved and with it also the mentality of men.

Mario Pietrantoni doesn't want the life of his father and mother, an honest one, but one of hardship and toil. He desires something better for himself, and so, when he discovers that cyclists earn up to fifty thousand lire a time—like the Girardengo everyone's talking about—he can't think of anything else. That must be his destiny. But when he seems to have realized his dream, when he has achieved glory and victories and is admired and honored by the entire town, Mario is found lifeless on the morning of June 28, 1931. What happened? An accident? Someone jealous of a boy the women liked? Or a political motive?
It's up to Commissioner Gregorio Linguiti, who considered Mario almost like a son, to investigate and try to uncover the truth.
Enrica Belli develops the novel on two separate, alternating narrative levels. On the one hand, we witness the life of Mario Pietrantoni, his dream, and his relationship with his family, made up of poor farmers, guided by the elderly Antonia, Mario's grandmother. It is she who gives her grandson his first bicycle, encouraging his dreams of glory and wealth but arousing the envy of Mario's father, who has always felt overlooked in his role as head of the family. On the other hand, we witness the investigation led by Commissioner Linguini, who, after pursuing various leads, encountering the hostility of the mayor and the Fascist party, and two unlikely confessors, finds the right insight that leads him to the painful solution to the case.
A novel that narrates Mario's adventures and the investigation into his death, but which also, in the background, sketches the history of Italy during the Fascist era. Through descriptions of sparse horizons, yellow and green countryside, dust and earth, the author shows us, as Michela Murgia writes, a country "that no longer exists. But the violence that devastated it has never disappeared."