A relentless wind that brings with it the hiss of at times incomprehensible words recurs in the disturbing dreams-memories of Andrea Greco, Sicilian, chief inspector of the anti-crime department of Ascoli Piceno, main actor of «Perfumes and scratches. Inspector Greco’s first investigation” (Giulio Perrone Editore), debut novel by Virginia Spanò from Messina (but born in Marsala), who puts herself to the test with a black-tinged mystery, a genre which – Sciascia said and Camilleri repeated – is “a cage, imposes temporal and spatial continuity and involves discipline”. An exercise that Spanò – who will present her novel today in Messina at the Marina del Nettuno (6.30 pm) – seems to have assimilated well by “using” the criminal fact, invented but extremely realistic, to photograph situations, environments, human types, vices and crimes, unfortunately known, within a compelling plot.
An investigation, the first, as the title promises, alluding to Greco’s subsequent commitments, which sees the inspector wake up from his restless sleep, on a “quiet” day of celebration in Ascoli Piceno, in fervor for the Giostra della Quintana in August. But waiting for him is a brutal murder that seems like an execution and a punishment, due to the horrendous state in which the body of a man, found in the picturesque Lake Pilate, on Mount Vettore, in a narrow glacial valley surrounded by the Sibillini mountains, is reduced. Mysterious due to the ancient legends which claim it to be a magical place, a meeting place for necromancers, legends which inspired Spanò. «Some Italian legends fascinated me – he tells us – so I started to research them, never thinking of writing about them, perhaps rather thinking of going to those places for a weekend. But as I researched it, I imagined a story, and then I started writing really by accident. I immediately thought of someone investigating, I liked the fact of taking a Sicilian to another territory. The first draft was kept for a long time, then I took it back and gave it a certain shape before having someone read it. Obviously the choice of Ascoli Piceno and its territory is linked to that legend.”
A virgin territory, as far as literary investigations are concerned, and in which Spanò moves by covering its geography and exploring its dark corners, entering the dark folds of criminal minds also belonging to apparently unsuspected environments. Inspector Greco and his collaborators, from deputy inspector Guido De Angelis to the pathologist Elena, from Silvia, to Sara, to Mia and others who form a close-knit team, find themselves facing dark events, secrets and other disturbing crimes, despite the city appearing immersed in a familiar and innocent, almost lethargic serenity. Events that exacerbate Greco’s claustrophobic sensations linked to a painful past in his Sicily, which returns with poignant sensations of perfumes and scratchy memories in the dream dimension and in his personal relationship with the wind: thus it becomes necessary to cross the darkness and face one’s demons while monitoring the loss in a sort of abyss in which space and time are one.
And the brilliant conclusion of the investigation after various twists certainly does not make us forget the ruthlessness of which humans are capable, even if those who act according to justice are not afraid of risking their own good to remain human.