Cristina Cassar Scalia had said it, in the interview published on these pages for Commissioner Scipione Macchiavelli, her new character, when we asked her how Vanina was, the Netine writer and doctor had said it, that Giovanna “Vanina” Guarrasi was well and would return within the year. And here she is again, Vanina, from Palermo and deputy commissioner of the Flying Squad of Catania, a creature of success on paper and on television, who has become so familiar, so “ours”, that finding her in her new investigation with «Amandorla amara» (Einaudi) comforts those who follow her events.
«I know very well that the readers, especially his most ardent fans – says the author –, although they welcomed Scipione with much affection, were all waiting for Vanina».
And the Vanina of «Bitter Almond» is here, just as her literary mother wanted her, with her anxieties and fragility, but also with the determination that defines her, the Gauloises, the gun always with her, the passion for Seventies dramas and films, and the greedy love for rotisserie products and for granitas and brioches. And with its emotional points of reference, its close-knit team which deserves credit not only for the happy conclusion of the investigations, but also for the affection of readers and viewers.
He could not do without the retired commissioner Biagio “Gino” Patanè, Vanina, who shares the detective intuition with him, the inspector Marta Bonazzoli, the great Chief Tito Macchia, the chief inspector Carmelo Spanò, the medical examiner and friend Adriano Calì, the magistrate Paolo Malfitano, the agents Agata Ristuccia and Salvatore Lo Faro, and then the lawyer Maria Giulia, “Giuli” De Rosa, his exuberant friend since high school, of her neighbor-guardian angel Bettina, of her mother Marianna, of her sister Costanza, of her stepfather Federico and also of Angelina, Patanè’s wife: they are all there with their lives, their bonds and everyday life, naturally marked by changes and also by unexpected events.
Recognizable characters who in the seriality, not easy to maintain for the writer – but Cassar Scalia knows how to do it very well – grow, adapt to situations, deal with the events of life, while the meshes of the plots widen. So a new case, with the victims exposed almost at the beginning of the story, in the background a splendid sea, for holidays, in a scorching summer in contrast with the terrible scene that soon presents itself: an unusual case, perhaps unique, for Vanina who has seen many deaths, a case that «Vanina had never had in her hands more annoying than this one», says the author, because seven poor people are found all together killed by cyanide on a drifting yacht.
For Cassar Scalia, daughter of the Mediterranean, the choice of setting is not casual: «There is my passion for the sea and the Aeolian Islands. And then I decided to use this technique which may seem obsolete, a murder by cyanide poisoning which certainly brings us back to the classic mystery, to Agatha Christie, as some have said. However, geography aside, the idea as always came from a place, in this case a bit particular, like a luxury boat.”
«As for Vanina – continues the author – the character will certainly have some developments, as she has already had in the ten books with her, because this is what happens to all of us when we live. And Vanina is in a particular moment in her life where everything is being questioned a bit, so there will be changes. And, in any case, his story will continue, I hope for a long time.”