L'EREMO DEI FOLLI

The first novel in a thriller series introducing June McFlynn, an Italian-American forensic entomologist who collaborates with the police to solve difficult cases through the study of the insects on the crime scenes.

June McFlynn is a biologist and forensic entomologist living in Sicily. Her mother is an elderly woman, her father is a former general of the US army, no longer in sight, who has given her the funds to open a high-tech laboratory for scientific investigations in an inland Sicilian village. June is an independent woman, dedicated to her work, living in a small community while defying its conventions. It's almost Summer: the heat is oppressive, and Prosecutor Emanuel Zagati, who has been her friend since they were teenagers, calls June as a private consultant on a complicated case. Police's just found the unrecognizable body of Liuba, a woman who disappeared two weeks earlier along with her eight-year-old daughter Olimpia, who is still missing. Suicide is the first hypothesis, then the polices moves on investigating the woman's husband, but the most important and desperate question for everybody is: what happened to the little girl? June's talent for forensic analysis, her intuition and stubbornness will be crucial in the different phases of the investigation, until a surprising conclusion. The case reopens a personal wound for her, a painful and carefully hidden episode of her recent past, and by finding Olivia she can finally start to come to terms with it. L'EREMO DEI FOLLI is June McFlynn's first investigation; it's a fast-paced, surprising and fresh narrative, set in a small community of colorful characters, featuring a couple of characters who share unquestionable chemistry and find themselves in a complicated relationship (Emanuel, the PM, has a girlfriend, but he and June argue, quarrel, make up, call and text and open their hearts to each other, and are "friends with benefits" from the start). June is a strong well rounded female lead with a troubled soul. She reminds of the most famous US fictional medical examiners and profilers, or of the characters of Ilaria Tuti's or Patrizia Rinaldi's novels. Agnese Messina is a biologist specializing in forensic entomology. She lives in Catania and this is her first novel.