Waking Raphael

A gripping thriller set in Urbino, Raphael's birthplace, Waking Raphael is the story of a restoration - of a painting and of a community. An investigation into a nearly-forgotten war crime is sparked off when Muta, an enigmatic mute woman, stabs a Count, in the process damaging Raphael's painting 'La Muta' which has just been restored. When rumours begin to circulate about Muta the woman - that she lives in the rotting fortress, San Rocco, on the outskirts of town; that she has a secret grudge against the Count; that something terrible happened to her during the war - more and more people begin to worry that the truth will come out. There are many other 'mutes' in this small town - Francesco, the ice-cream maker who knows that to reveal his secret would be to commit suicide, Charlotte, who is incapable of expressing love, Donna, a Canadian TV presenter who 'can't shut up to save her life', but cannot speak Italian. The story is told as a series of miracles, the biggest and last, the truth finally being revealed about what happened at San Rocco during the war. Mirroring the reawakening of a national conscience in Italy in 1993, Leslie Forbes intelligently and passionately evokes the stories of each mute and Urbino's second renaissance is brought about. Beautifully-drawn characters, a wonderful sense of time and place and an omniscient narrator bring an incredible warmth to this third novel from the author whose first, Bombay Ice, was a Sunday Times bestseller.

Leslie Forbes is half Scottish and half Canadian and has lived in London for the past 18 years. She studied philosophy at university and went on to do Fine Art at the Royal College of Art. She makes documentaries for BBC radio and writes in a range of newspapers and magazines.