I met Vittorio Nichilo during a guided tour. He had come with his junior high school students from Brescia, where he lives and works. Between one monument and another, he told me that he wrote about local history, but that he had recently published some detective stories, and that his grandfather was a doctor in Tromello, in the Pavia area.
I thought to myself that there were two reasons why it would be interesting to invite him to our small library in Pavia Est.
Vittorio Nichilo, a teacher, is also a local historian and publicist journalist. He is connected to the Pavia area through family ties. He collaborates with the cultural page of the Giornale di Brescia and is also involved in theater for children: in the past, he created the "Classi(ci) in scena" series.
The collection of detective stories entitled "Le storie dietro, i racconti del maresciallo Manassero" represents his debut in the world of fiction. The volume was awarded at the Villa Annoni competition in Cuggiono, promoted by the Ecoistituto della Valle del Ticino. It is a collection of ten detective stories that, although independent, are structured as a novel.
Because each of us has a story behind us and, in the case of these stories, they are fundamental to understanding the dynamics of the various crimes.
The stories are set in Monferrato, Langhe, and Riviera ligure, a territory that has much in common with our Pavese. The events take place in the province of Alessandria, in a town called Castel Merlino – a fictional name that actually conceals Gamalero, the town of Olga, the author's maternal grandmother.
In the various stories, Marshal Manassero and his carabinieri investigate crimes committed by elderly people who kill other elderly people for events that occurred years earlier. A deep analysis of how some dynamics of the mind can survive over time and turn into extreme, unexpected gestures.
For Manassero, in addition to solving the case, it is essential to understand the stories that lie behind each person: victim or perpetrator, everyone has a world behind them.
Another distinctive feature of these stories is the presence of dialects: Piedmontese, Venetian, Brescian, Sicilian, and many others. These different voices give substance to the characters, creating a choral effect that makes the events even more realistic.
As the author would say, dialects are the language of the heart, the language of emotions, the one that gives "saor" to life.
The book presentation will be held on Friday April 12 at 5:00 PM
at the Pavia Est Neighborhood Library, in Via dei Pollaioli 30, Pavia
