Black sand
Audiobook
Black sand
The discovery of the corpse is a godsend for Vanina. Not the last.
Sicily's Catania has been subject to Etna's fickleness for centuries - the scorching sun can be replaced in an instant by a shower of volcanic sand. Deputy Police Director Giovanna Guarrasi, among Vanina's friends, learns this the hard way. He has been in charge of the local homicide unit for less than a year and is just getting to grips with the volcano-shaded town, but he's starting to like it as much as his culinary delights. Apart from work and food, her other passion is old Italian films. He puts his fondness for retro to good use after the accidental discovery of a mummified body and sets about solving a case more than fifty years old, which is far from as closed as it seems and as one would wish.
The search for the identity of the victim involves retired commissioner Biagio Patanè, a veteran of all the city's misdeeds. Together with Vanina, they unravel an ancient tale of greed and resentment, the blood trail of which stretches to the present day. The black volcanic sand is a mute witness to the crime and intervenes in the lives of the protagonists as a flesh-and-blood character.
The first episode of the Italian crime series with Commissioner Giovanna Guarrasi. "Vanina" is often described as a worthy successor to the Sicilian commissioner Salvo Montalban from Andrea Camilleri's novels. Apart from their love for Italian cuisine, they undoubtedly share a sense of justice and, above all, the sympathy of their readers.
They wrote about the book:
Black Sand is simply a well-written mystery. It's not a consumable read that you'll put down at the end, but it will keep you wanting to come back to the book.
- forum24.cz
This mystery was a pleasure to read, and not just for those who like Italy. Investigations are unpredictable and the serious tone often lightens the banter, especially when the police are assisted by an entire geriatric section.
- centrum-detektivky.cz
Cristina Cassar Scalia
The Sicilian native studied medicine and works as an ophthalmologist. She became famous for a series of successful detective novels featuring the peculiar head of the homicide department, Giovanna "Vanina" Guarrasi. Ten stories set mostly in Catania, where the author lives, have already been published - the first is Black Sand (2018, no. 2024), which earned her the Racalmare Leonardo Sciascia Award, and the most recent Chestnut of a Hundred Horses (2024). The narrative draws on an intimate knowledge of the setting and is characterised by authenticity of characters, ingenious plotting and a certain old-fashionedness. This manifests itself not only in Vanina's passion for classic films and traditional Sicilian cuisine, but also in an old-style police investigation in which logical reasoning and psychic knowledge play an important role.
