Italian crime literature is enjoying a moment of great success, but few know that one of its leading figures was censored, imprisoned and killed by a fascist regime. While investigating this novel, Alessandro Robecchi, one of Italy’s most beloved crime authors, with ten novels in his “Carlo Monterossi” series having sold more than 600,000 copies, realized that the violent political censorship of those years echoed our current era of suppression of free speech.
In BROKEN TRUTHS: A Novel, a mysterious murder in present-day Milan intertwines with a cold case from the 1940s. This thrilling new work about film, freedom, censorship, and the persistent threat of fascism.
An acclaimed director, Manlio Parrini, decides to return behind the camera. Having abandoned cinema at the height of his success because he found the industry to be “a place without truth,” he now, in his 70s, has a special story in mind: a film about Augusto De Angelis, a pioneer of Italian crime fiction in the 1930s. The violent death of De Angelis remains, for Parrini, an unsolved case marked by the stench of injustice and blind fascist censorship; a story that needs to be told now more than ever.
Yet just as Parrini finds a producer for his project and begins writing the screenplay with his friend and accomplice Sara De Viesti, another mystery merges in his life: the murder of the elderly widow Bastoni, who owns the villa next door to his.
BROKEN TRUTHS is a crime story nestled in a crime story and a timely novel about our limited freedom.
About the Author: Alessandro Robecchi is a former columnist for Il Manifesto and currently writes for Il Fatto Quotidiano and Tuttolibri of La Stampa. Robecchi is one of Italy’s most beloved crime authors, with his ten novels in the Carlo Monterossi series having sold more than 600,000 copies.
About the Translator: Gregory Conti has translated numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from Italian including works by Emilio Lussu, Rosetta Loy, Elisa Biagini, and Paolo Rumiz. He is a regular contributor to the literary quarterly, Raritan.
Alessandro Robecchi’s BROKEN TRUTHS On-Sale Date: May 19, 2026 • Price: $17.99
Disclosure: NYC Single Mom was not compensated for this post.
