A thriller that does not betray expectations, rightly called 'vintage' because it recovers stylistic features of the literature that made the genre so successful, while adopting a modern language.
Intricate plot and endless surprises for this 'Deceptive appearances' published by Robin Edizioni, the first novel by Livio Frittella, journalist and voice of GR2 RAI, already author of essays and dictionaries in the past.
Set between England and the Caribbean island of St. Lucia from the twenties to the seventies of the twentieth century, it contains in itself - in a well-blended narrative recipe - all the ingredients of the detective story that leaves you with bated breath. last page: many possible culprits with their motives, all members of a family unit, gathered in an isolated place that becomes the scene of a drama that is at the same time the pivot and peak of the whole story.
A story that never seems to end, given the repetitive revelations of hidden truths and well-kept secrets that follow one after the other without a moment's respite.
Authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace come to mind ... all seasoned with a good dose of 'British humor' a la Wodehouse or Jerome,
The protagonist is Major Arthur Cartwright who has summoned his family to celebrate their 70th birthday with them.
His comfortable life, full of satisfactions and enriched by seven children, was, however, studded with narrow escapes and painful griefs.
A series of adverse events culminated - just a year earlier - with the loss of his second wife Chantal.
Orphaned of his mother, Arthur had lived childhood and adolescence in golden isolation, in the quiet of Wordingham, the English country residence, with a distant and distant father, absorbed in the management of his plantations in Saint Lucia, in the Antilles.
Moving to tropical Eden after his parent's death, he discovered at his expense how a paradise-like island can turn into hell.
Even a negative experience, however, can reserve completely exciting implications, such as meeting Lionel, a sincere friend, and the happy meeting with Esther, a girl to marry.
Returning to his homeland on the threshold of the Second World War, Arthur had retired to the quiet English countryside.
But when the birthday party in Wordingham is in full swing - with all of Arthur's relatives reunited in Chantal's memory - the drama that poisons the climate of euphoria explodes, in a crescendo of conflicting emotions and, revelation after revelation - in a whirlwind. of coup de théâtre - unconfessed secrets are discovered, hidden backstories, unimaginable truths capable of redesigning reality, confirming - as the title says - how 'appearances deceitful' are.