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Runaway Horses

By Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini
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Brief Description
Runaway Horses is set in Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, frequented by all discerning travellers to Tuscany. The city is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages, held every summer in the centre of the town. Milanese... Read More
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Siena is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages held every summer in the centre of the town. Lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife are unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race, including the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey.

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Runaway Horses is set in Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, frequented by all discerning travellers to Tuscany. The city is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages, held every summer in the centre of the town.

Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria find themselves unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots, and bribes surrounding the race. They even witness the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey, who is found dead the day before the race.

This brilliant novel is a murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage and a decadent society, as well as a history of the Palio, all rolled into one. What begins as a listless excursion to a medieval equestrian competition turns into a hallucinatory nightmare for Maggione and his wife, awakening their dormant libido for each other but, more dangerously, for others in their entourage.

The death of the jockey is only one of the mysterious events to be solved. It soon becomes clear that there are no bystanders in the Palio.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781916725034

Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 January 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Bitter Lemon Press

Contributors:

  • Translated by Gregory Dowling

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 180

Collections

Carlo Fruttero Crime & Thriller Fiction Franco Lucentini General Fiction

About the Author

Carlo Fruttero (1926-2012) and Franco Lucentini (1920-2002) are legendary authors in Europe, known as pioneers of the modern crime genre. Runaway Horses and The Lover of No Fixed Abode are two of six works of fiction they wrote together and have never been available in English before.

Gregory Dowling grew up in Bristol and read English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. Gregory lives in Venice. He is a celebrated translator from Italian, a novelist (The Four Horsemen and Ascension, both set in Venice). and a local university professor.

Also by Carlo Fruttero

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  • The Lover of No Fixed Abode
    The month, November. Glittering worldliness and dubious shabbiness overlap, passion and suspicion intertwine in a three-day Venetian adventure, bookended by the arrival of a plane and the departure of a ship. It begins with a troubling encounter on a flight to Venice. She is an elegant Roman signora on the search for undervalued paintings, and he a mysterious tour guide....
    By Franco Lucentini and Carlo Fruttero
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Also by Franco Lucentini

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  • The Lover of No Fixed Abode
    The month, November. Glittering worldliness and dubious shabbiness overlap, passion and suspicion intertwine in a three-day Venetian adventure, bookended by the arrival of a plane and the departure of a ship. It begins with a troubling encounter on a flight to Venice. She is an elegant Roman signora on the search for undervalued paintings, and he a mysterious tour guide....
    By Franco Lucentini and Carlo Fruttero
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