Nowhere Fast

“Nowhere Fast” is the second book in the PI Giorgia Cantini series where, in Bologna, she investigates the disappearance of Vanessa Liverani, a high-class call girl. There Giorgia uncovers a sordid world of prosperous businessmen, doctors, and lawyers who hire prostitutes for private sex parties. She loathes the predatory behavior of these apparently respectable men — men as empty and rotten as the contemporary society they represent. Much of “Nowhere Fast” takes place, however, outside Bologna, in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna around the village of Sasso Marconi, among the sandstone cliffs of Contrafforte Pliocenico Natural Reserve. But even there, Giorgia fails to find an idyllic existence as she gets to know four generations of the Liverani family, whose troubled lives are rooted in the older traditions and rhythms of rural life. Between these two worlds, Vanessa’s young son Willy is trapped. Surrounded by family, he is tragically on his own. Meanwhile, Giorgia herself struggles between memories of her unruly and joyous youth — where the discovery of sex played a big role — and the bitter realities of her adult life. In Giorgia’s view, growing up comes to be seen as a layer of ice slowly spreading over our ability to have strong feelings and authentic personal lives. “Nowhere Fast” was originally published in Italian in 2006. It is second in the PI Giorgia Cantini series after “Quo Vadis, Baby?” (Italica Press, 2018). Four more Cantini novels followed “Nowhere Fast”: “Di tutti e di nessuno” (2009), “Cosa sai della notte” (2012), “Senza ragione apparente” (2015, special mention at Premio Scerbanenco 5), and “Come la pioggia sul cellophane” (2020). Introduction, First English translation, 192 pp.