Guido Pagliarino

New York, late evening of March 30, 1972: During a political banquet organized by the challenging candidate Senator Donald Montgomery in the run-up to the US presidential elections, a wealthy young woman, his well-known elector married to the very rich Peter White and a systematically adulterous woman who in the 50s had been the lover of the Italian Vittorio D'Aiazzo, deputy police commissioner of Turin, and in 1969 his friend Ranieri Velli’s lover, is killed with a firearm. After killing a security guard who got in the way, a mysterious individual suddenly appeared at the door of the dining room, killed the woman, fled, and disappeared without trace. The only elements that the guests, Velli among them, recall of the murderer is the masked upper part of the face, the massive size, the modest height and the large grayish beard, characteristic features of Vittorio D'Aiazzo who in those same hours was not in Italy but in New York ...

Already published for the first time in 2010 with GDS Edizioni and now out of print, this novel has been revised and greatly modified by the author and is published and in the new version with Tektime. It is based on the figures of the deputy police commissioner Vittorio D'Aiazzo and his friend Ranieri Velli, characters who are also present in other works by the author. The story unfolds in the year 1972, after the novel ”Il metro dell’amore tossico” (distributed by Tektime, not yet translated into English), set in 1969, and takes place partly in New York and partly in Turin as did the narrative of the aforementioned novel. We also find, together with the two main characters, several supporting figures including the interested publisher Mark Lines and the icy billionaire Donald Montgomery, former director of the FBI in New York and now a member of the Senate and candidate for the Presidency of the United States against the outgoing president M. N. Richard. On the evening of March 30 1972, during an electoral banquet organized by Montgomery, a wealthy young woman is shot dead. She is his great elector, wife of the very rich Peter White, and a systematically adulterous woman who in the 50s had been Vittorio’s lover and in 1969 Ranieri’s lover. A mysterious individual suddenly appears at the door of the dining room, and after killing a security guard who was in the way, kills the woman and flees managing to lose all trace of himself. Of the murderer, masked in the upper part of the face, only the massive size, the modest height and the large grayish beard, characteristic features of the deputy police commissioner Vittorio D'Aiazzo, appear evident to the guests, among whom sits Ranieri Velli; moreover, in those same hours Vittorio was not in Italy but in New York with his girlfriend Marina Ferdi, widow of the late commissioner Verdoni, once Vittorio’s deputy. No less, D'Aiazzo’s name is included in the list of guests at the private banquet. Apart from Ranieri Velli, clouded by his friendship, the witnesses recognize and point to the deputy police commissioner as the killer. He is accused of murder, together with his partner, by the New York prosecutor Maxwell, friend and supporter of Montgomery. The latter wants to show that it was not, as the outgoing president Richard insistently insinuates, a fake attack on his person which he organized himself for electoral publicity, that unfortunately ended badly because the shooter missed the target. The district attorney is fully intent on having Vittorio convicted based on an alleged motive of passion: his hatred for the woman who had abandoned him at the time. The deputy police commissioner and his girlfriend are extradited to New York for the preliminary trial which, as we know, in the United States takes place in the courtroom, in the presence of jury and judge. At this point we are still only at the beginning of the novel. Several pages among those that follow present phases of the debate. D'Aiazzo’s young lawyer, Ms. Sarah Ford, hypothesizes in the fir

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Vittorio, The Man With A Beard: A Novel

Barbara Maher

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