Antonio Manzini – författare

Already an international hit, a sly, sizzling mystery set in the Italian Alps, the first in a sensational crime series.The dark flanks of the Alps tower over everything. Wind whistles through the fir trees. An expanse of ice and snow with no end in sight. A growing stain. A mess of flesh and blood. A corpse buried six inches under the snow.Enter Rocco Schiavone, Deputy Police Chief and a man who has more beautiful women in his bed than sensible shoes under it. He’s stuck in this backwards Alpine town after getting on the wrong side of the wrong people and longs for the fritto misto, cobbled streets and lucky breaks of his beloved Rome. He hates this place and the provincial locals almost as much as his superiors for their petty rules and for exiling him here. On top of that, he’s got a body to deal with and this mangled corpse is “a pain in the ass, number 10 on the scale, summa cum laude”…There is blood on the black run and nothing to identify the victim but a tattoo of Luisa Pec, owner of a bar popular with the locals and a pair of blue eyes popular with Rocco. Was it a crime of passion? Or of jealousy? And how are the mafia involved? Rocco Schivone is on the case, the first in a sensational new crime series.

‘He’d almost walked right over it when he finally saw it for what it was: a stain of red blood, churned into the white blanket of snow…’After getting on the wrong side of the wrong people in Rome, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone is exiled to Aosta, a small, touristy alpine town far from the cobbled streets and fritto misto of his beloved city.Rocco’s talent for solving crimes is matched only by his disdain for the rules and his eye for a beautiful woman. But when a mangled body is found on the ski slopes, he soon discovers that his Roman sophistication – not to mention his expensive Roman shoes – are of little help in this dangerous and unfamiliar mountain landscape.With blood on the black run, rumours of mafia involvement and a murderer at large, Deputy Police Chief Schiavone is about to find himself skating on very thin ice…

Already an international hit, a sly, sizzling mystery set in the Italian Alps, the first in a sensational crime series.The dark flanks of the Alps tower over everything. Wind whistles through the fir trees. An expanse of ice and snow with no end in sight. A growing stain. A mess of flesh and blood. A corpse buried six inches under the snow.Enter Rocco Schiavone, Deputy Police Chief and a man who has more beautiful women in his bed than sensible shoes under it. He’s stuck in this backwards Alpine town after getting on the wrong side of the wrong people and longs for the fritto misto, cobbled streets and lucky breaks of his beloved Rome. He hates this place and the provincial locals almost as much as his superiors for their petty rules and for exiling him here. On top of that, he’s got a body to deal with and this mangled corpse is “a pain in the ass, number 10 on the scale, summa cum laude”…There is blood on the black run and nothing to identify the victim but a tattoo of Luisa Pec, owner of a bar popular with the locals and a pair of blue eyes popular with Rocco. Was it a crime of passion? Or of jealousy? And how are the mafia involved? Rocco Schivone is on the case, the first in a sensational new crime series.

Small towns can hide big secrets, but Rocco Schiavone will do whatever it takes to bring them into the light. The second novel in the internationally bestselling series from Italian crime maestro Antonio Manzini.In an elegant apartment in a chilly Alpine town a cleaning lady makes a gruesome discovery: the body of her employer hanging from a chandelier in a dark room in an apparent suicide.Working the case is Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone, banished from his beloved Rome to snowy, small-town Aosta. An incurable cynic, perpetually at war with the world – and the weather – Rocco is unconvinced that Esther killed herself.Armed with his intuition and his inimitable brand of morality, he begins to hunt for a killer. But as he digs deeper into Esther’s life Rocco is increasingly troubled by personal matters: his dissatisfied girlfriend Nora; the very vocal memory of his deceased wife, Marina; and a score that still needs settling back in Rome.

Small towns can hide big secrets, but Rocco Schiavone will do whatever it takes to bring them into the light. The second novel in the internationally bestselling series from Italian crime maestro Antonio Manzini.In an elegant apartment in a chilly Alpine town a cleaning lady makes a gruesome discovery: the body of her employer hanging from a chandelier in a dark room in an apparent suicide.Working the case is Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone, banished from his beloved Rome to snowy, small-town Aosta. An incurable cynic, perpetually at war with the world – and the weather – Rocco is unconvinced that Esther killed herself.Armed with his intuition and his inimitable brand of morality, he begins to hunt for a killer. But as he digs deeper into Esther’s life Rocco is increasingly troubled by personal matters: his dissatisfied girlfriend Nora; the very vocal memory of his deceased wife, Marina; and a score that still needs settling back in Rome.Small towns can hide big secrets, but Rocco will do whatever it takes to bring them into the light.

Small towns can hide big secrets, but Rocco Schiavone will do whatever it takes to bring them into the light. The second novel in the internationally bestselling series from Italian crime maestro Antonio Manzini.In an elegant apartment in a chilly Alpine town a cleaning lady makes a gruesome discovery: the body of her employer hanging from a chandelier in a dark room in an apparent suicide.Working the case is Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone, banished from his beloved Rome to snowy, small-town Aosta. An incurable cynic, perpetually at war with the world – and the weather – Rocco is unconvinced that Esther killed herself.Armed with his intuition and his inimitable brand of morality, he begins to hunt for a killer. But as he digs deeper into Esther’s life Rocco is increasingly troubled by personal matters: his dissatisfied girlfriend Nora; the very vocal memory of his deceased wife, Marina; and a score that still needs settling back in Rome.Small towns can hide big secrets, but Rocco will do whatever it takes to bring them into the light.

The internationally acclaimed crime thriller set in the Italian Alps: “Written in a style both colorful and ironic [by] a great storyteller” (Suspense Magazine).Getting into serious trouble with the wrong people, deputy prefect of police Rocco Schiavone is exiled to Aosta, a small, touristy alpine town far from his beloved Rome. The sophisticated and crotchety Roman despises mountains and snow as much as he disdains his superiors and their petty rules. But when a body is discovered on a ski run above Champoluc, Rocco is once again at home—on the trail of a killer.Identifying the victim is a challenge in itself, complicated by Rocco’s ignorance of local customs and history. As he encounters the enigmatic folk of Aosta—and a few beautiful locals eager to give him a warm welcome—Rocco realizes that murder is never a simple affair.“The ranks of impressive Euro Noir novelists is swelled by the gritty Antonio Manzini, whose Black Run . . . underlines its genre-credentials with a superstructure of diamond-hard crime writing.” —Financial Times

An Italian detective who brings his “case to a solution out of Agatha Christie as satisfying as it is unexpected” is “a memorable companion in crime” (Kirkus Reviews).Six months after being exiled from his beloved Rome, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone has settled into a routine in the cold, quiet, chronically backward alpine town of Aosta: an espresso at home, breakfast in the piazza, and a morning joint in his office.A little self-medication helps Rocco deal with the morons that almost exclusively comprise the local force. Especially on a day like today. It’s his girlfriend’s birthday (if you could call her that; in his mind, Rocco’s only faithful to his late wife), he has no gift—and he’s about to stumble upon a corpse.It begins when a maid reports a burglary in Aosta. But there’s no sign of forced entry, and after Rocco picks the lock, he notices something off about the carefully ransacked rooms. That’s when he finds the body: a woman, the maid’s employer, left hanging after a grisly suicide. Or is it? Rocco’s intuition tells him the scene has been staged. In other words, it’s murder—a pain in the ass of the highest order.In this stylish international mystery, Antonio Manzini further establishes Rocco Schiavone as one of the most acerbic, complicated, and entertaining antiheroes crime fiction has seen in years.“Entertaining...Readers will look forward to seeing more of this fascinating and complex character.” —Publishers Weekly“Manzini delivers a wonderful mix of in-depth characterization with an ever-deepening plot.” —Booklist“Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop.” —Venerdì di Repubblica

A clever, engaging new novel from bestselling Italian author, Antonio Manzini, following the dashing deputy police chief, Rocco Schiavone, who confronts his most riveting case ever.It’s the bitterly cold spring season in alpine Aosta, and a girl has been kidnapped. Chiara Berguet, daughter of the owners of a local construction firm, was targeted thanks to the sizeable debt her parents owe. But like many a best-laid plan, a blown tire causes the crime to go haywire as the kidnappers’ van skids off the road and crashes into a pair of larch trees. Both the driver and his accomplice die on impact, leaving the girl in the back, gagged and bound and unable to break herself free. Meanwhile Rocco Schiavone wakes to find himself in Anna’s apartment. She’s the best friend of his girlfriend Nora, and memories of the night before, a heated evening with Anna, return to him. As he sneaks out, he sees the first few snowstorm clouds of the spring season move across the sky, an ominous reference that something is off.If trouble at home and a case of kidnapping weren’t enough, Rocco will eventually have to contend with Enzo Baiocchi. Rocco was the one who sent Enzo to prison, and in the process killed Enzo’s brother. Having just escaped from prison, Enzo is heading north with a newly purchased revolver and, clearly, revenge on his mind. And when an unfortunate incident of mistaken identity makes Enzo’s act of revenge even more fiendish, it also presents a gruesome scene for Rocco to discover on his return home.

“An engrossing mystery . . . peopled with authentic characters, most notably the wry, pot-smoking, disillusioned [cop] Rocco, who was born and raised in Rome.” —Publishers WeeklyIt’s the bitterly cold spring season in alpine Aosta, and a girl has been kidnapped. Chiara Berguet, daughter of the owners of a local construction firm, was targeted thanks to the sizeable debt her parents owe. But like many a best-laid plan, a blown tire causes the crime to go haywire as the kidnappers’ van skids off the road and crashes into a pair of larch trees. Both the driver and his accomplice die on impact, leaving the girl in the back, gagged and bound and unable to break herself free.Meanwhile Rocco Schiavone wakes to find himself in Anna’s apartment. She’s the best friend of his girlfriend Nora, and memories of the night before, a heated evening with Anna, return to him.If trouble at home and a case of kidnapping weren’t enough, Rocco will eventually have to contend with Enzo Baiocchi. Rocco was the one who sent Enzo to prison, and in the process killed Enzo’s brother. Having just escaped from prison, Enzo is heading north with a newly purchased revolver and revenge on his mind. And when an unfortunate incident of mistaken identity makes Enzo’s act of vengeance even more fiendish, it also presents a gruesome scene for Rocco to discover on his return home.“A next-read for those who enjoy Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti series and Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache novels.” —Booklist

The fourth installment in the Rocco Schiavone mystery series from the international bestselling author, Antonio Manzini picks up three days after his last novel, Out of Season, left off, as Rocco seeks revenge for a friend—and closure for himself.Rocco is still reeling from the death of his best friend’s girlfriend, who was murdered as she slept in his bed. There’s no doubt that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price. With the identity of the hitman still unknown, a cloud lingers over Rocco, dulling his judgment and leaving this anti-hero exposed to other threats. For Rocco has stepped on one too many people’s toes over the years, namely the mafia that is still being rooted out in Aosta. To complicate matters, the kidnapped teenager that Rocco saved has not fully recovered. But all is not as it appears with that family. Her mother, father, and boyfriend are all running some sort of farce that Rocco can’t easily crack. And now he must grapple between these two parallel investigations and find answers once and for all…before one too many skeletons come after him. With the same clever insights, vitality, and humor readers have come to expect from Manzini, Spring Cleaning is another engaging, page-turning mystery.

“Rocco’s fourth case offers a procedural panorama with an abundance of subplots, characters, and lively dialogue” (Kirkus Reviews).Rocco is still reeling from the death of his best friend’s girlfriend, who was murdered as she slept in his bed. There’s no doubt that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price. With the identity of the hitman still unknown, a cloud lingers over Rocco, dulling his judgment and leaving this anti-hero exposed to other threats. For Rocco has stepped on one too many people’s toes over the years, namely the mafia that is still being rooted out in the small Alps town of Aosta.To complicate matters, the kidnapped teenager that Rocco saved has not fully recovered. But all is not as it appears with that family. Her mother, father, and boyfriend are all running some sort of farce that Rocco can’t easily crack. And now he must grapple between these two parallel investigations and find answers once and for all . . . before one too many skeletons come after him.

Der 5. Fall der Nummer-1-Bestsellerreihe aus Italien um den unvergleichlichen Rocco Schiavone.Juli 2007: Lange vor seiner Versetzung in das verschneite Aostatal lebt Rocco Schiavone mit seiner Frau Marina in der römischen Heimat. Als in einem Marmorsteinbruch die Leiche des Jurastudenten Giovanni aufgefunden wird, deutet zunächst alles auf einen tragischen Unfall. Doch Rocco findet heraus, dass der Junge aus wohlhabendem Haus ermordet wurde. Kurz darauf wird die Leiche von Giovannis bestem Freund entdeckt. Bei seinen Ermittlungen setzt Rocco Ereignisse in Gang, die sein Leben für immer verändern werden. Und auch Jahre später, in einem kalten Frühling in den Bergen, noch spürbar sind …

Die Leiche einer jungen Frau treibt in der Dora, dem Fluss, der durch das beschauliche Alpenstädtchen Aosta fließt. Als Vicequestore Rocco Schiavone und sein Team die Wohnung der Toten im wohlhabenden Teil der Stadt inspizieren, erleben sie eine Überraschung: Das Apartment ist komplett leer, kein Möbelstück, kein Kleid, kein Stück Papier ist mehr da. Doch keiner der Nachbarn will einen Auszug oder Einbruch bemerkt haben. Während Rocco herauszufinden versucht, welches Geheimnis sich hinter der Fassade der Luxuswohnanlage verbirgt, wird der Polizist von seiner dunklen Vergangenheit eingeholt: von den Ereignissen um den Tod seiner Frau Marina und einem ungesühnten Verbrechen, das noch immer nach Rache verlangt …

Der Nummer-1-Bestseller aus Italien. Er ist brillant. Er ist skrupellos - und er hat nichts zu verlieren. Wer Rocco Schiavone einmal entdeckt hat, muss ihn einfach lieben.Unberührte Landschaften, kristallklare Seen und eine atemberaubende Aussicht auf die italienischen Alpen. Alle lieben das Aosta-Tal - nur einer hasst es: Rocco Schiavone, der von Rom in die Berge strafversetzt wurde. Der Polizist ist auch nach zehn Monaten nicht mit seiner neuen Heimat warmgeworden. Zu kalt, zu nass, zu hinterwäldlerisch. Doch die Ruhe trügt. Als im Gefängnis ein Insasse während des Hofgangs ums Leben kommt, glaubt Rocco nicht an einen Unfall. Mimmo Cuntrea saß erst seit drei Tagen ein, Rocco selbst hatte ihn wegen der Entführung einer Schülerin hinter Gitter gebracht. Die Obduktion ergibt tatsächlich: Cuntrea wurde vergiftet. Rocco beginnt undercover im Gefängnis zu ermitteln - und muss um sein eigenes Leben fürchten. Denn noch immer ist ein Mörder hinter ihm her. Ein Mörder, dessen Kugel ihn schon einmal verfehlt hat…Der «Dr. House» der italienischen Alpen ist zurück! Ein neuer Fall für den unverschämten, korrupten und unvergleichlichen Rocco Schiavone.

Kalte Füße, schlechte LauneRocco Schiavone wird strafversetzt, ausgerechnet in das verschneite Aosta-Tal. Ein Albtraum für den römischen Kommissar. Erst, als auf der Skipiste eine Leiche gefunden wird, zermalmt von einer Schneeraupe, ist sein Ehrgeiz geweckt. Steckt eine Beziehungstat dahinter oder das organisierte Verbrechen? Doch Rocco hat nicht nur mit dem verschwiegenen Bergvolk zu kämpfen, sondern auch mit widrigen Wetterverhältnissen, die ihn zwingen, seine Lederslipper gegen unförmige Moonboots einzutauschen. Eine Zumutung, die sich nur mit jeder Menge Grappa ertragen lässt …«Eine außerordentliche Ermittlerfigur.» (Andrea Camilleri)«Er ist sarkastisch, zynisch, untreu, er raucht gern Gras und er hasst seinen Beruf: Rocco Schiavone sprengt alle Regeln.» (Corriere della Sera)«Unkorrekt und jähzornig, mit einer Neigung zu Handgreiflichkeiten und einer Schwäche für die Frauen: Rocco ist ein ganz besonderer Ermittler.» (La Repubblica)«Korrupt und genial.» (La Stampa)«Auf diesen Ermittler wollen wir nicht mehr verzichten.» (La Lettura)«Hat das Zeug zum Serienstar.» (Più)

Rocco Schiavone ist nicht gerade das, was man einen vorbildlichen Polizisten nennen würde. Er ist unverschämt, er verabscheut seinen Beruf - und es ist keine gute Idee, ihn vor seinem morgendlichen Joint anzusprechen. Seit der Römer in das verschneite Aosta-Tal strafversetzt wurde, ist seine Laune so düster wie der Himmel über den Bergen. Doch als eine junge Frau erhängt in ihrer Wohnung aufgefunden wird, ist Roccos Spürsinn geweckt. An Selbstmord glaubt er nicht: Blaue Flecken und Schürfwunden legen nahe, dass Ester Baudo gequält wurde. Ein Fall, der dem Ermittler unter die Haut geht. Und ihn zwingt, sich dem zu stellen, was er am meisten fürchtet: seiner Vergangenheit.«Eine außerordentliche Ermittlerfigur!» Andrea Camilleri

Laune: legendär schlecht.Skrupel: null.Talent, Mordfälle zu lösen: brillant.Zehn Paar Herrenslipper hat Rocco Schiavone an den Schnee verloren, seit er vor acht Monaten in das trostlose Aosta-Tal strafversetzt wurde. Der römische Kommissar hasst die Kälte, das Bergvolk, und vor allem hasst er seinen Job. Doch als die Schülerin Chiara nach einer Nacht in der Disco spurlos verschwindet, ist sein Ehrgeiz geweckt. Denn obwohl alles auf eine Entführung hindeutet, leugnen Chiaras Eltern hartnäckig, dass sie Opfer eines Verbrechens wurde. Aber dann verdichten sich die Hinweise darauf, dass das Mädchen in den Bergen gefangengehalten wird. Und während es, mitten im Mai, erneut zu schneien beginnt, gerät nicht nur Chiaras Leben in Gefahr. Denn jemand aus Roccos Vergangenheit hat noch eine Rechnung mit ihm offen …