The Crossroads - Tapa blanda

The new Italian word for talent is Ammaniti. * * The Times * * A master storyteller. -- Michael Dibdin * * Guardian * * Exuberant and audacious. * * Observer * * A work of enviable, disturbing power. A tornado-book. * * Le Point * * Ammaniti's new novel grabs you by the throat and heart. Compelling. * * Elle * * Ammaniti is a gifted storyteller. -- Jane Shilling * * The Times * * Offers an artful stitching of plots and cinematic, horror-dazed images, and Jonathan Hunt's translation is exemplary. -- Ian Thompson * * Observer * * Fastpaced . . . [and] undeniably engaging. * * Big Issue Scotland * * The Crossroads firmly places Niccolo Ammaniti as one of the leading Italian novelists of his generation. -- Christian House * * Independent on Sunday * * In a country where church and state remain indelibly linked, Ammaniti shows God as the ultimate arbiter of this struggle. Prayers materialise like dice throws resulting either in absolution or damnation. In fact, it would be hard to find a more inventive, incisive examination of faith, in all its forms, than this extraordinary work. -- Christian House * * Independent on Sunday * * Hunt's translation is deft and fluent . . . The Crossroads is a black thriller with the momentum of an action-packed Hollywood movie, and it makes for engrossing if unsettling and even terrifying reading. -- Joseph Farrell * * Times Literary Supplement * *

Cristiano is sixteen. Home life is far from perfect, and when his drink-sozzled father and two reprobate friends come up with a plan to rob a bank, Cristiano sees the chance of a better life. But as a tremendous storm brews that night, the perfect crime will have shocking consequences for all involved. And Cristiano must put childhood behind him once and for all. The utterly absorbing novel has pace, plot twists and glorious characters. An epic drama of innocence and delusion, The Crossroads is Ammaniti's most engaging novel yet.