Tra lei e me

Pietro Valvassori is a solicitor and rides around on a black bicycle with rod brakes and leather panniers. His hair turned grey when he was thirty, and he started wearing an earring when he said goodbye to an honest but unremarkable career as a rugby player. Now he is over fifty and wears bizarre ties. He is not a prince of the bar, but he has a reputation as a defender of the weak. He has also become the go-to lawyer for women who are victims of violence. Sometimes, too often, he works pro bono. Then, one day, the lawyer for just causes makes a U-turn of sorts, agreeing for the first time to defend a suspect in a murder case, a femicide: Lorena, a successful estate agent, was strangled in a property she was exclusively handling. This happened just a few hours after she said goodbye to her partner Leandro. The police investigation focuses on Leandro, who, however, resolutely declares his innocence and entrusts Valvassori with his defence. The night before the interrogation, the lawyer meets with his client. Who is Leandro really, and who was Lorena? What was their relationship like, what cracks did it hide, what evidence does the police have to suspect the victim’s partner? The lawyer does everything he can to undermine the suspect’s confidence, dragging him into a ring where no holds are barred and the reality of the facts turns out to be a game of broken mirrors. From this will emerge not only the truth about Lorena’s death but, above all, the enigma of romantic relationships, of the dynamics of love, from passionate fervour to the discomfort of addiction. In which a subtle, incorporeal cruelty unites those who pursue and desire each other and those who have stopped desiring each other. Giampaolo Simi gives us perhaps his most tense novel yet. A long night, a stage on which a double tension unfolds: should we believe a man accused of killing his partner or his lawyer, who demands sincerity from his client that seems to coincide only with a full confession? In the end, after the darkness, dawn will finally bring light.