“The Enigma of the Veiled Christ” is the debut novel by Neapolitan Emanuele Scherillo, a professional actor and trainer
[Press release from Laura Bufano]
Published by Giazira scritture, finished printing in April 2020. Scherillo, like many of his generation, reinvents himself as a writer and borrows, for the investigation of Inspector Gennaro Russo, the Sansevero Chapel, the museum complex that houses splendid baroque works, and above all the famous marble sculpture by Giuseppe Sammartino, the “Veiled Christ”.
The mystery begins with the murder of Francesco Maria dei principi Di Sangro, found right at the foot of the Veiled Christ. Inspector Russo of the San Lorenzo police station is called to go to the scene. An investigation is thus started aimed at unmasking the culprit and the reason that pushed him to that strong gesture. The personal story of Inspector Russo starts from the context in which he was born and raised and accompanies the reader to his current reality: a young man, with great intuition and a strong sense of justice, as a boy a womanizer who was never able to truly love. Next to him a colleague and not only, Brigadier Caputo, a person who has great affection for him.
The past never completely disappears, so those who had been his childhood friends return to his investigation, they are: Peppe 'o crick, Sasà 'o sorice and Pasqualino 'o lione. At the time a real pack, all very young, and he, Gennaro Russo called Marlboro, had been part of it for a period of time. The education received from an aunt, when he was orphaned, had taken him in the opposite direction of his friends. In the novel, the external environments prevail, revealing the writer's knowledge of the places. We are in 2018, Naples is a bit the protagonist of the story, at least a part of Naples that despite everything always remains the same, does not change. There are many flashbacks in the novel: the stories of the history of the members of the pack, a character of the Camorra, and the stories of the heirs of the Princes of Sangro: Leonardo, Antonino and Cecilia, finally there is a love story, one of those that make the inspector's heart beat.
As the investigation progresses, apparently incomprehensible writings are found at the crime scenes. Russo finds himself having to investigate a serial killer with plenty of suspense for the reader. The approach to the novel may be skeptical, in the sense that the reader thinks of the usual detective story, considering it now a way of riding the wave, but a great curiosity regarding the place where the first body is found, that is, the Sansevero Chapel, spurs one to read the novel.
The author uses a fresh and believable writing style that makes you want to read the novel in one breath until you discover the truth. Inspector Russo's investigations do not stop here, in fact the second novel by Emanuele Scherillo is being written because in his writing the imagination finds no difficulty and is full of passion for History, for Art and for his Naples.
Article published on 24 February 2021 - 09:01
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