General Fiction

Una lunga estate crudele

(A Long Cruel Summer)

Casa Editrice Longanesi&C., January 2015, pp.320

over 1 million copies sold, 45 editions.

Alice Allevi: funnier, clumsier, more intuitive and ironic than ever. A successful mix of crime story, romance and comedy.

A very successful TV series based on these novels has been produced by Endemol and broadcasted by RAI 1.

The comeback of the pathologist who has charmed thousands of readers, and become a literary phenomenon.

Alice Allevi, is a young post-graduate student in forensic medicine who has learnt to resist everything. Or almost everything.
Because she is a good student, she resists the pressure from her superiors who have asked her to supervise a young post-graduate student…but what a pain to have to supervise her own self! Her tortuous sentimental life is proof of this. Alice is in fact still suffering from an “undecided heart” syndrome, which keeps her torn between two men that are charming as much as they are different from one another: Arthur, also known as “The Unnamed” after years of inflicting suffering upon her, and Claudio, the most successful medical examiner of the institute, good looking and an inveterate seducer who can tempt like the devil.
Alice also resists -or at least tries to resist – the urge to launch into fanciful investigative theories each time she collaborates secretly with superintendent Calligaris, who seems to have more faith in Alice than she does in herself.
But during what turns out to be the hottest summer Alice has ever experienced since she has lived in Rome, dealing with all these issues becomes quite a challenge when she is suddenly faced with a case that could involve her far too much.
The discovery of the mummified body of a young theatre actor, believed to have disappeared years earlier, but who seems to have been killed, is just the first act of an intricate and complex enquiry. From then on Alice will have to face a series of characters who initially come across as being transparent and sincere, but who are all hiding unmentionable secrets. However Alice knows: no secret is a secret forever. And those who can’t keep their secrets at bay end up being dominated by them…which leads to a tragic and cruel finale.

Casa Editrice Longanesi&C., January 2015, pp.320

  • “In my very personal and omnivorous vision of literature, it is good at times to be able to read a purely entertaining book, in which the intentions of the author and of the reader are perfectly aligned: to grant oneself a pause from reality and daily bleakness.”

    Marco Malvaldi, ttL, La Stampa

  • “The plot is engaging, the style lively. You smile, you laugh, and you can’t put it down.”

    Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett

  • “The rhythm of the book is, as always, fun, lively, and has the right dose of suspense.”

    La Repubblica

  • “The plot is tight-nit, the writing quick and ironic, this is a well constructed series.”

    La Stampa

  • “It has a well-constructed plot, an absorbing rhythm, and the rare gift of wit.”

    Libero

  • “Alice Allevi. Remember her name, because she’s the star of a new series which will accompany us through the next few years.”

    Brunella Schisa, Il Venerdì di Repubblica

  • “Alice Allevi is bumbling, anxious, romantic, curious and indecisive – especially when it comes to love. In one word: she’s adorable.”

    Oggi

  • “Gazzola’s success lies in her ability to put down on paper the kind of woman who has no difficulty showing her own humanity. Alice’s curiosity and her capacity to react give her the grit to get back on her feet, and keep the reader glued to the page.”

    La Lettura - Corriere della Sera

Rights Sold

Rights of the series have been sold to: France: Presses de la Cité/Place des éditeurs; Germany: Carl’s Book/Random House; Japan: Nishimura; Poland: Jaguar; Spain: Suma/Santillana; Serbia: Evro-Giunti; Turkey: Ilgi.

Alessia Gazzola

Alessia Gazzola was born in Sicily in 1982. She has a degree in Medicine and has been specialising in Legal Medicine. L’Allieva (The Apprentice, 2010) was her debut novel and the first title of  a bestseling series. Thanks to the mix of suspense and irony, and to its endearing protagonist, the aspiring pathologist Alice Allevi, the series was an instant bestseller.

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