Sasso - Hardcover

Sturz, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802733727 ISBN 13: 9780802733726

Publisher: Walker & Co, 2002

Synopsis

In the small Italian town of Mancanzano, the bodies of two teenagers turn up in the deep caves surrounding the village, and, as police investigate the deaths, four experts arrive to investigate the stunning frescoes found on the cave walls and other couples start showing up dead.

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Reviews

An American anthropologist working in southern Italy finds his team's efforts plagued by a series of macabre murders in Sturz's debut, a vividly imagined, erotically charged thriller set in the tiny town of Mancanzano. The anonymous narrator and his three colleagues are called in after two teenagers are found dead in a series of caves known as the sassi, just outside the village. Sexual evidence at the crime scene adds a steamy, sensational angle to the murders, and the suspense is heightened when the anthropologists find four more bodies in another cave, which is adorned with a series of violent, carnal frescoes. The team's restoration work is suspended as the bumbling, corrupt local police move in to investigate; their lack of progress becomes especially noticeable when someone begins killing local dogs and depositing their bodies around town and in the caves. Faced with the prospect of some downtime, the team members begin to succumb to their own carnal urges, and the narrator finds himself embroiled in a dangerous affair with a gorgeous 19-year-old named Filippa, who wants him to impregnate her. The narrator gives in, even though he has a pregnant girlfriend back in New York, and things get worse when he learns of Filippa's role in the crime. Sturz's character manipulation is too blatant to make this novel effective as a murder mystery, but his use of the village's geography and history is masterful as he creates a sense of erotic tension amid the carnage.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This intriguing first novel offers one of the most compelling premises in recent crime fiction. A team of scientists has been summoned to the southern Italian village of Mancanzano, where many of the residents live in sassi (cave houses carved from a special stone called tufa) to examine a remarkable fresco, which was discovered in a cave that also held the naked bodies of two teenagers, who apparently died after gnawing tufa from the walls of the caves. Narrated by one of the foreign experts, an anthropologist from New York, the novel follows the growing hysteria as more bodies appear and the experts come under attack from local authorities. Sturz builds tension, suggesting links between the ritualistic aspects of the teenagers' deaths and the content of the fresco. Unfortunately, the anthropologist narrator is not nearly as compelling as the story unfolding in front of him. A frame story involving his lover in New York is intrusive, and his interior monologues detract from the building drama in the caves. Still, this is a fine first novel, only a few missteps short of greatness. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker & Co
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802733727
• ISBN 13: 9780802733726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 306