‘The Less Unkind’ by Rosario Giorgi

Published by Troubador Publishing Ltd,
28 January 2025.
ISBN: 978-1836287261

It is 1994, and Pico della Rosa is twenty-one and enjoying her third year of academic studies at the University of Copenhagen. Pico is an attractive, lively, young woman, and is part of a well-born, affluent, Italian family. She is defined by her natural gift for languages and an intellectual curiosity that means she is fascinated by linguistic puzzles. Above all, she is recklessly courageous, and, at the start of this adventure, she has never known real fear, which means she embraces danger as an exciting challenge.

One of the first new friends Pico made in Copenhagen had been Leo Hansen, and he has remained one of her closest friends. It is Leo who is responsible for the most major development in Pico’s life when he tells Pico that Antonio Bartram, an antique dealer, is looking for a summer assistant to answer the telephone and to mind the warehouse when he is out. He is looking for someone who can speak several languages, but knowledge of antiques is not required. Pico has already heard about Antonio, and she is fascinated by the rumours that in his earlier life he had been a priest. She goes to the warehouse with Leo to meet Antonio and feels an immediate bond with him. She accepts the job that Antonio offers her; she is happy to do the work he sets her, which leaves plenty of time for her own studies, and she is delighted to be working in the warehouse because she has admired the outside of the building whenever she passed it, especially the leering satyrs on the facade.

The more she gets to know Antonio, the deeper the connection with him becomes; she finds him interesting and charismatic, although she senses within him a reserve and deep loneliness. One thing about her new job that disturbs her are the phone calls from a man called Catania, whom Leo had encountered once and feared; in the brief phone calls that Pico receives from Catania she feels the same sense of trepidation, although he does nothing more frightening than ask to speak to Antonio.

Pico is excited when Antonio tells her that she is to accompany him to an auction in Sweden and mentors her about what is involved in attending and bidding at the auction. However, on the journey he spends the time telling her about art theft, specifically about Caravaggio’s Nativity, an extremely valuable painting that had been stolen in 1969 from a badly guarded parish church in Palermo, Sicily, and had never been recovered. As the trip continues, Pico begins to suspect that the auction is not Antonio’s main motive for the journey, and she becomes convinced that it has something to do with his obsession with the missing Caravaggio.

Pico is used to Antonio going off on business trips, but when a journey that he predicted would only last a fortnight stretches on much longer and he neither returns nor contacts her, she becomes worried. Her anxiety increases in proportion to the length of his absence, and her only point of contact is Antonio’s unhelpful solicitor, a man that she instinctively dislikes, who claims that he has no idea of Antonio’s plans or his current location. Pico is determined to find Antonio, and she uses her linguistic skills to decode the clues she discovers regarding his life and his possible whereabouts, an exercise that endows her with a growing understanding of the fundamental importance of keys of all kinds. Her research causes her to visit the Italian Riviera, the Vatican, and the mysterious Norden Wine Club in Copenhagen, and culminate in a forbidding castle. During her quest, she loses her youthful recklessness and experiences deep fear, especially when she encounters members of the Mafia, who never forget a grudge, as well as dealing with ruthless collectors of historical artefacts. Despite everything, Pico refuses to abandon her search for her friend, even though she knows that her attempts to find Antonio could well result in her own death.

The Less Unkind is a captivating novel with an engaging, dynamic protagonist, and an interesting, complex plot, which takes the reader on a tour of many fascinating places. It is a beautifully written novel, which explores the themes of obsession and moral dilemmas, and cleverly combines fictional characters with a real-life art theft that has never been solved. This is a compelling read, which I thoroughly recommend.
------
Reviewer:  by Carol Westron

Rosaria Giorgi comes from a quaint little Italian village, nestled among the rolling hills of Tuscany. She studied Scandinavian Languages and Literature in university, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Pisa. Research took her to the University of Copenhagen, where she had the bold idea of a Denmark-Sweden bridge. This formed the foundation of her thesis exploring the relationship between infrastructure and regional identity in the Øresund region. She founded a fashion startup and spent over a decade in Dublin.  In 2011 she left the Irish rain for the Canadian snow in Toronto, where she currently lives with my husband.   

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries, the series which began with The Fragility of Poppies.  

www.carolwestron.com