At the Soapery

Fancy an excellent parmigiana, or something a bit spicier? A murder investigation – or maybe two? Deputy Commissioner Vanina Guarrasi, a lover of good food and old films, is back from Palermo, where her father's killer narrowly escaped arrest. Instead of rest, however, more work awaits her – a man is found shot dead at Catania airport, and in the tourist hotspot of Taormina, a dead woman is found in a well. Who is the murdered Cuban with American and Italian citizenship? Are the two tragic deaths somehow connected? Are they crimes of passion, or are the tentacles of the Sicilian Mafia involved? With the considerable help of retired commissioner Biagio Patanè (and much to his wife's displeasure), Vanina fights not only organised crime but also her own past traumas. The third instalment of the popular detective series will instantly transport you to Sicily, to the city beneath the volcano that never sleeps. The next case for Deputy Commissioner Guarrasi, whose mismatched but effective team has since made it to the screen – the series Vanina, whose second season premiered in spring 2026, is also set to be broadcast by Czech Television.       “The third Vanina Guarrasi case is perhaps the most ambitious instalment in the series – this time the story goes beyond the borders of Sicily and heads all the way to Cuba. Cassar Scalia loses none of what makes the series exceptional: meticulously drawn characters, Catania as a living city, and personal storylines that are just as urgent as the investigation itself.” – from reader reviews on Databazeknih.cz “At the soap factory, she offers another wonderfully complicated case, which also extends into the neighbouring Messina district. One that requires not only international cooperation but, what's more, the involvement of all of Spanò's cousins and their sources of information.” – Centrum detektivky “Do you have Mr Nuzzarello's phone number?” Vanina asked after a long and arduous conversation, which Patanè and Spanò had been watching helplessly without understanding a single word. “Yeah, sure!” The girl ran into the next room and returned with a smartphone in her hand. She began scrolling intently until she found what she was looking for. She angled the screen towards Vanina, who leaned in to read the email. The girl flinched slightly, which distracted the deputy. She looked her over to find the reason and saw that she was staring intently at her inseparable service Beretta, which had peeked out from under her jacket. To reassure her, she told her it was on safety, but it didn't have much of an effect. The girl continued to look at her with distrust, as people often did when they saw her armed, especially if the situation didn't call for it. They considered her an executioner, someone who shot indiscriminately, which wasn't true at all. But Vanina cared very little about that. Going out unarmed was completely out of the question. The email the girl showed her contained instructions on how to get to the location, information about payment options – which “unfortunately due to a temporary technical outage” did not “currently” include payment by debit or credit card – and finally, a contact for Nuzzarello. Vanina dictated it to Spanò, who saved it on his mobile, while Patanè, just in case, jotted it down in his indispensable tattered squared notebook. You know how it is: you can't trust these technological devilments. – excerpt from the book