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Mattia, orphaned, lives with his grandfather in Castel Nero, a little town in the mountains, over-looking the Black Lake. All that Mattia wants is spending a lighthearted summer playing basket in the Oratory playground waiting for the school opening dates. Instead the sergeant Augusto Zanella, transferred few months ago to Castel Nero, is looking only for a bit of peace, far away from his past. The discovery along the lake shore of two mangled bodies will upset the life of both of them. The night before the first murder Mattia, wandering along the Black Lake shore, spotted somebody and somebody spotted him, although Mattia doesn’t know. The sergeant Zanella, affected by a weird sort of hydrophobia worsened by the persistent presence of the lake, is incapable to give a reasonable and logical explanation, the only one he’s willing to accept, for those mysterious deaths. Castel Nero and its villagers hide a sinful secret that don’t want to share with the outsiders. Present and past, reality and legend will end to intertwine as Mattia’s and Zanella’s life will do. They will find toghether that nothing is as it seems. Or maybe it’s simply like that.

• A striking and breathtaking novel until the last page.
• «“If only that useless body of water could witness and talk we all could go back soon to the police station. I know that it has seen everything.” He paused. Then referring to that weird police case he asked the sergeant: “What do you think about it?” “I think that we wouldn’t like all that the Black Lake would have to tell,” the sergeant replied.»
• It’s better to believe that we have been dreaming certain things rather that to know that they are true.


Luca Occhi lives in Imola. He is one of the founders of the Officine Wort, an association organising and promoting readings, book presentations, literary events and contests. Luca was awarded with many prizes and has published more than twenty stories. Luca has been the Artistic Co-Director of the Emilia Noir Festival.

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