Broken Truths

An aging director investigates a fresh murder while making a film about a decades-old cold case in this exquisite mystery from Italian novelist Robecchi (the Carlo Monterossi series). Manilo Parrini, whose films sit beside those of Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni in the pantheon of Italian cinema, has not made a movie since the universally acclaimed Broken Truths 30 years ago. Now in his 70s, Parrini is quietly returning to the fray with a project about the life and unsolved murder of Augusto De Angelis, who became the father of the Italian crime novel in the 1930s and ’40s. Parrini is begrudgingly pulled away from the project when his widowed neighbor, Nora Vuillermoz, is found dead in her massive villa and deputy prosecutor Chiara Sensini draws him into the investigation. As unsavory details about Nora’s personal dealings emerge, Parrini dives deep into research on De Angelis, who was persecuted by the Fascist government before his death. Robecchi lends the core mysteries an elegant philosophical dimension via Parrini’s artistic musings, which widen the scope beyond the question of whodunit to consider questions about power, political corruption, and the nature of truth. This is a cut above most murder mysteries. (May)