Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – Here's a selection of new releases in bookstores, including novels, essays, investigative books, and reports, presented this week by AdnKronos.
"The Heart Is a Weapon," a book by thriller master Jeffery Deaver, is now available in bookstores with Rizzoli. An abandoned building in Spanish Harlem, one of the many forgotten relics on the outskirts of New York, is devoured by flames on a scorching summer day.
When the smoke clears, something among the rubble immediately rules out the possibility of an accident. It's a fireproof box with the number 1 written in blood red on the lid. Inside, a copy of Heart of Darkness, an antique whip, some rubber bands: seemingly unrelated objects, but chosen with a precision impossible to ignore.
The case reaches Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, and they need nothing more to hypothesize that this is only the first fire.
But to decipher the clues and identify the next target, forensic evidence isn't enough. They'll need to find the connection between those objects and the darkest pages of history, with the help of one of the country's most popular podcasters. During the investigation, Rhyme and Sachs cross paths with Desdemona Vale, a Long Island detective with the calm demeanor of a small-town grandmother, but the determination of someone who won't settle for easy answers and an illegal revolver in her purse.
She's determined to find the killer of a young girl in her neighborhood, following a difficult trail, filled with out-of-place details and questions no one wants to answer.
Meanwhile, the fire continues to rage, leaving behind evidence that seems to drive the investigation and collateral victims of an increasingly cruel plan. Deaver orchestrates a race against time in which every clue could be a revelation or a trap, and the deepest feelings reveal themselves as the point at which every human being is most vulnerable.
American writer Elizabeth Strout's "The Things We Don't Say" is on the shelves with Einaudi. Artie Dam is a middle-aged history teacher, one of those who are remembered forever: beloved by his students, respected by his parents, and awarded Teacher of the Year. He loves sailing, the sometimes angry, sometimes shy, and bewildered faces of his students—who have nicknamed him "Arch-Prof" in class—and the increasingly rare chats with his son Rob. Yet Artie has fallen out of love with life. Under the roof of the beautiful house overlooking the water along the Massachusetts coast, which he shares with his wife Evie – a family therapist accustomed to treating other people's disasters, less so his own – the silence has begun to weigh differently, the distance imposed by Rob, a brilliant engineer in marital crisis, has worsened, and loneliness has become a background noise since Flossie, the eccentric friend who could make him laugh, has gone away with the recommendation to "stay cheerful as usual."
And then, all around, there's a community shaken by new social resentments that, on the eve of the 2024 presidential elections, threaten to explode at the first spark. Lies, it seems, are rampant in his private life as well as his public one, and poor, kind, even-tempered Artie Dam, the embodiment of the American dream shattered by the contradictions of our time, must ask himself: "Why don't people ever tell the truth?" But it's a sudden boating accident that brings him one step closer to the bottom and, paradoxically, brings him back to the surface with an unspeakable truth in his hands. A secret capable of rewriting thirty years of marriage and redefining the boundaries of what remains unsaid. Around Artie's seismic trajectory, Elizabeth Strout weaves a wonderful new tapestry of imperfect lives: the fragile Rhonda, who walks with dangling arms, searching for her place in the world; Danny Marino, the angry boy who discovers a passion for Shakespeare; Ken Moynihan, the unexpected friend with whom to share the truth. Unknown islands and universes, all of them, all of us. But it is precisely through the cracks of this isolation, in the daily and moving struggle of revealing oneself to the other, that rays of a faint but inextinguishable light filter through.
Franco Bernini's "Alfabeto Machiavelli" is now available in bookstores with E/o. The man who would analyze the eternal dynamics of power in depth like no other was born in May 1469 to a modest family. Throughout his 58 years of life and dedication to the Florentine state, Niccolò Machiavelli never achieved a rank, role, or salary commensurate with his stature. Worse still: when power passed from the Republic to the Medici and back again, he found himself faced with denunciations, torture, and marginalization. He died in June 1527, and even the works that brought him greatest fame, The Prince and the Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, were published posthumously.
We're accustomed to thinking of him as a cynical, unscrupulous, and ambiguous man of power, so much so that he coined the adjective "Machiavellian." The reality of Niccolò Machiavelli the man, however, is infinitely more complex and nuanced: he calls himself "historian, comic, and tragic" as well as a good poet; he is sensual, passionate, restless, lucid, sarcastic, capable of analyzing like a scientist the complexities of history, power, and humanity, hiding nothing. And with this "Machiavelli Alphabet," wandering here and there among the words of the Florentine Secretary and his family, friends, and enemies, we too can finally glimpse and piece together the many facets of Niccolò the man, moving beyond the stereotypical image we've been handed down of him.
Screenwriter and director, Franco Bernini has written numerous films, including "Notte Italiana," "Domani succedere," "Il Portaborse" (the story), "Another Life," "Chiedi la luna," "Sud," "La lingua del santo," "A cavallo della tigre," and "A casa nostra." For television, he wrote the screenplays for "Adriano Olivetti," "Rocco Chinnici," and "Aldo Moro, il professore." He has written the novels "La prima volta" and "To Each His Saints," as well as several short stories. He wrote and directed "Le mani forti," presented at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for a David di Donatello Award and a Grolla d'oro for best screenplay; the documentary film "Vivere," and, for television, "Braibanti, un caso senza precedente," "Sotto la luna," and "L'ultima frontiera."
Carmine Abate's latest book, "The Goodbye Days," is coming to shelves with Mondadori. Twenty years have passed since Giorgio, an Italian language teacher in Cologne, left "the House in the Clouds," the institution that profoundly affected his childhood. Yet a single message on his Facebook page is enough to make him relive that tumultuous period he had tried so hard to forget. A happy child in his hometown, where his gaze can encompass the Sila mountains and the sea through the branches of holm oaks, Giorgio is eight years old when his father decides to emigrate with the family from Calabria to Germany. The trauma of leaving his hometown, the friends with whom he shares a passion for football, and the beloved grandfather who is the guardian of that happiness, is soon compounded by a second shock. In Cologne, his unexpected difficulties at school, due to that new and inhospitable world that rejected him, forced his father to take him back to Italy and entrust him "for his own good" to the Degasperi Educational Center, a secular boarding school in the mountains of Trentino.
The institute, nestled in the green woods and surrounded by snow-capped peaks, welcomes children of immigrants with stories very similar to his own, but to Giorgio it immediately feels like a prison. The rigorously scheduled days, the discipline maintained even at the cost of severe punishments, make the separation from loved ones and the longing for life back home unbearable. Now, however, the message he received reminds him that there were also happy days at the institute, and life-saving friendships. Those are the reasons for the pact sealed then, to reunite with his classmates as adults, on a date that seems to have come straight from a numerology treatise: 08-08-08. Even though Giorgio already knows that one of them, the most rebellious, will not be there. With his generous and engaging prose, Carmine Abate delivers a story steeped in the bitterness of those who see their roots forcibly torn away, in the name of a promise of a future that over time becomes a thorn under the skin. A cathartic novel, which eases the pain of this condemnation by replacing the harshness of farewell with the docility of goodbye.
Sem is releasing "But the Mountain Stands Still" by Francesca Bognolo. The mountain never forgets. It absorbs the pain of humanity and buries it along with the treasures it holds. But every landslide is a wound, every silence that envelops the valley a truth waiting to resurface.
While the Belle Époque celebrates the dream of a radiant future, on the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire lies a place seemingly immune to the euphoria of the early twentieth century. Raibl is a small mining community nestled in the Alps, where Italians, Slovenians, and Germans speak the same language: that of hard work. Among them is Gabriel, a taciturn young man with extraordinary talent, incapable of bending to convention, who finds in the tunnels the safety denied him by the surface world. Miriam, on the other hand, is the daughter of the local doctor. She has arrived from Prague, bringing with her a fresh perspective. Cultured, curious, restless, she is the only one capable of approaching Gabriel without trying to change him. A bond is born between them, built on trust, differences, and innuendo, destined to shatter when the body of a local girl is found at the edge of the woods. Everyone blames it on the wolves. But Gabriel knows the animals and the tracks they leave. And she knows wolves don't kill like that. As suspicion creeps in, the memory of another girl who disappeared a few weeks earlier resurfaces. And so Inspector Hans Zanier arrives from Trieste, a brilliant investigator scarred by a personal tragedy that derailed his career. His questions undermine the fragile balance of a community where everyone knows each other but no one truly knows the person closest to them.
Francesca Bognolo interweaves the power of grand historical narrative with the profound tension of mystery, bringing to light—far from the glittering spotlight of the metropolises—the rotten heart of Europe, where the twentieth century of industry, technology, and the carnage of war took shape. In these pages, the search for truth becomes an investigation of belonging, the accumulation of wealth, the silent violence that oppresses diversity, and the fragility of all certainties.
Laterza publishes "Human History of Artificial Intelligence: Dreams, Battles, and Illusions from Turing to Today" by Andrea Daniele Signorelli. When does the history of artificial intelligence begin? Who are the people who have shaped its development? What scientific and philosophical visions have clashed over the decades? From hopes and illusions, sensational oversights and strokes of genius, this is a compelling story that highlights the many human faces hidden behind the most overwhelming technology of our time. Artificial intelligence has burst into our daily lives with disruptive force. In just a few years, chatbots, software, and intelligent algorithms have become familiar to us. But few know the history and ideas of those who, over the course of a century, silently prepared this sudden explosion. Since its origins in the 1940s, the scientists who created this discipline have attempted a wide variety of approaches to pursue a common goal: replicating the functioning of the human brain. An incredibly ambitious dream, one that has repeatedly given rise to unbridled expectations, sparking endless debates on the very concept of "intelligence." Andrea Daniele Signorelli reconstructs the most important figures, philosophical approaches, turning points and impasses in the frantic effort to empower machines with thought: from Alan Turing's insights to the rivalry between Marvin Minsky and Frank Rosenblatt, creator of the first neural network; from the famous Dartmouth conference to the "godfather of AI" Geoff Hinton; from ELIZA, the ancestor of ChatGPT, to the computer vision revolution with Fei-Fei Li. Passing through the technological clash between the United States, the Soviet Union, and now China, Garry Kasparov's defeat against DeepBlue, the rift between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, the moves of Google, Anthropic, and other Big Tech companies. AI is an adventure that began within the university walls and is destined to conquer the entire world; A troubled history, made of hyperbolic impulses and abrupt setbacks. A past from which we can still learn much about the future of this technology.
Andrea Daniele Signorelli, a freelance journalist, has been covering the relationship between new technologies, politics, and society for over ten years. He writes for “Domani,” “Wired,” “la Repubblica,” and “Lucy.” He is the author of the podcast Crash – The Key to Digital and the newsletter Backdoor. His latest books are Technosapiens. How Humans Transform Into Machines (2021) and Digital Simulacra. The Hallucinations and Deceptions of New Technologies (2025).
Baldini and Castoldi are releasing "Honeypot: How Russia Infiltrated the Epstein Operation," an essay by journalist Jacopo Iacoboni. Jeffrey Epstein wasn't just a predatory financier with a powerful network. For years, a network developed around him that spanned politics, finance, technology, and intelligence services. A network in which sex, money, and blackmail became instruments of power. Drawing on thousands of previously unpublished documents from the US Department of Justice, the FBI, and international intelligence agencies, Jacopo Iacoboni reconstructs the fabric of Epstein's relationship with Russia: the business visas obtained through men linked to Russian intelligence, his contacts with models, procurers, and emissaries, his relationships with some of the most influential people in Silicon Valley and finance, and the financial transactions that led to oligarchs close to the Kremlin. But above all, he follows the logic of an operation in which nothing is what it seems. Epstein's universe thus appears as a potential honeytrap device: a system built to gather information, create dependencies, produce kompromat, and transform private vulnerability into a form of political power. Honeypot is the story of a network that leads to the heart of the West and its elites, and of a disturbing question: how powerful can a secret become when someone, on the other end, knows they possess it?
Jacopo Iacoboni is an investigative journalist for La Stampa. He has won several awards and has been reporting on major Italian political events since 2000. For years, he has covered populism, the Five Star Movement and the League, hybrid warfare, disinformation, and Russian operations in Italy and Europe. He writes a column on international politics for La Stampa's magazine, Specchio. In 2020, he received threats from the Kremlin; the Russian Ministry of Defense wrote to him in a public statement, "Whoever digs the grave will end up in it," due to his investigations into Russia's Covid aid missions to Giuseppe Conte's Italy. He is the author of the essay "Kremlin Trojan Horses: Russian Influence in Italy." He has also written: "Votantonio" (2006), "The Lost Left" (2009), "The Experiment. An Investigation into the Five Star Movement" (2018), and "The Execution. 5 Star Movement: From Movement to Government' (2019). On Russian operations in Italy he wrote 'Oligarchs. How Putin's Friends Are Buying Italy' (2022) and 'Putin's Treasure' (2023).
It's a day like any other, in the not-too-distant future. Two Taiwanese fighter jets take off on a routine mission: to prevent Chinese forces from penetrating the island's airspace. But this time, something goes wrong. Two Chinese pilots fail to respond to their calls, flying dangerously close to the border, and the situation escalates. It's just an accident, but it will trigger a chain reaction: supported by Russia, Iran, and North Korea, China will annex Taiwan, dragging the United States to the brink of World War III. Starting from this hypothetical scenario, Andreas Fulda, who has been researching conflicts in the Taiwan Strait for over twenty years, imagines in his book "If China Attacks" (Marsilio) what it would mean for Europe and the world if China decided to pursue its ambitions for power, including militarily. With the rigor of academic research and the expressive freedom of literary writing, the author explores the human and social dimensions of a conflict that no longer seems so improbable and whose consequences would be catastrophic for the international community.
Behind the dystopian narrative lies an urgent warning about the fragility of the global order we're accustomed to, and a plea for the European Union to take a stand: "To maintain peace, we must first have the courage to remain vigilant from an increasingly serious danger. It will also require considerable strategic foresight, coupled with constant diplomatic, economic, and military pressure. But all of this requires decisive action."
Andreas Fulda, an expert on China-EU relations, is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Nottingham. He contributes to international newspapers and magazines, including FAZ, WirtschaftsWoche, NZZ, and Foreign Policy.
"Francis and His Brothers. A Biography" is on the shelves with Sellerio. At first, they were just a group of ragged people, mostly very young, all at odds with their families. They occupied the abandoned churches of the Assisi plain, staying in straw huts, in the woods, or in caves in the surrounding mountains. From village to village, they proclaimed peace, love, and forgiveness. Their leader was a slightly older man who refused to be a leader, but who acted as a living rule. Francis of Assisi had renounced his father's legacy to take the Gospel literally and live it in its entirety, and with this radical choice, he had fascinated and gathered around him, modeled on the Knights of the Round Table, boys and girls. Thus, at the beginning of the 13th century, a previously unseen community was born, the bearer of an unprecedented message: in a world where knights held the place of honor, their companions encouraged peace and unarmed vulnerability; In a society of greedy merchants, they rejected money and any form of property, calling for sharing and the abolition of social distinctions; in a century in which suspicion of those who were different dominated, Francis and his followers preached love for others.
In these dense and passionate pages, Sylvain Piron reconstructs the trajectory of a man and an epochal phenomenon, in a "collective" biography, reconstructed through the lens of the movement of his very young followers who abandoned everything to devote themselves to spreading the master's message. We thus encounter figures long overshadowed by the saint's fame, such as Egidio, Jacopa dei Settesoli, and Fra Pacifico, as well as better-known figures such as Saint Clare, in a narrative that explores the full range of manuscript and artistic sources, providing a vivid portrait of Francis of Assisi and his dissident movement, revealing previously unseen episodes and details. "In these times of war, environmental disaster, excessive consumption, and financial greed, his message of peace and humility, of detachment from material goods, of affection for trees and animals, and of respect, resonates even more forcefully," and makes us feel the need for movements like his today. This is why this is not just a biography of a legendary man: it is above all "an invitation to reflect on the relevance of the Franciscan proposal in a disenchanted world." Sylvain Piron (Paris, 1967), a specialist in Franciscanism and dissident spiritual movements, teaches Medieval History at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, where he is part of the research group founded by Jacques Le Goff. He edits the journal Oliviana and is the publisher of Vues de l'esprit. Among others, he has published 'Dialettica del mostro' (Adelphi, 2019), which won the Grand Prix des Rendezvous de l'histoire.
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