Quello Che Ti Nascondevo by Marina di Guardo

Due to work and summer-related reasons, my reading slowed down the last weeks, and will keep this pace until the end of August probably. I am operating right now at a bare minimum level, covering mostly my spots of the book tours while spending the rest of my summer days out in the sun - most probably reading and thinking about new projects.

But I still have projects to work on, and one of them is improving my Italian at a highly professional level. A mission partly accomplished this year, with an increasing number of books in Italian that I had the chance to read. 

My latest one was a women-centered thriller, writen by Marina di Guardo, the mother of the famous Italian infuencers Chiara and Valetina Ferragni, herself an active user and consumer of social media: Quello Che Ti Nascodevo/What I was hiding from you.  

One year after the death of his beloved Allegra, in an accident in the mountains, Giacomo uses to listen to her old audio messages. But as he catches the voice of a man calling her ´baby´, his life is shuttered. The more he dives into his wife´s past, the more shocking the revelation of her infidelity. But no matter how disturbing the revelations, he doesn´t stop trying to find him. And as some of the women he dated - as a married man, with a Tinder profile - are also found dead, he is on a mission trying to solve the mystery of their murder.

The reading is suspenseful although some coincidences - too many to count - are weakening the plot. I was caught by the beginning and shocked by the ending. Although the main storyteller is a man, Giacomo, the women do play the most important role in the story: their betrayal, expectations and the violence they often are submitted to. The childhood trauma is alongside the topic of the violence against women are very important topic framed in the story, reflected not only into the history of the characters but strongly motivating their acts. 

From the point of view of the vocabulary, I´ve learned a lot of new slang words, mostly relevant for Milano area where the action is taking part. There may be better thrillers around, but this one resonated with me for the women-focus and modern takes on couple and relationships.

My Italian journey continues.

Rating: 3 stars