- The time is the Twenties. Dr. Carlo Rambelli, inspector for the Ministry of Health, is sent to the Ravenna area to investigate a presumed epidemic of malaria. Once he has reached his native Romagna, Rambelli finds he has to grapple with the elementary life in ghost towns and with the strange deaths of two doctors: the province doctor and the country doctor. The story, which began with a self-possessed, elegiac narration, starts being tinged with suspense and mystery. In the end it will take on the distinct colours of the splattered nightmare. This novel of Baldini's is well constructed, a 'visual' cinema narration. In particular, the description of the horizontal Ravenna countryside is suggestive, with the open plains, the silence, the fog. The characters are vivid: aside from Dr. Rambelli, a gentleman who lent himself to medicine, there is Elsa, the woman of the people full of sensuality and primitive charm, whom the lead character falls in love with, questioning his own marriage relationship; Bellenghi, the federal ignoramus, bossy and violent, symbol of local power and muscular Fascist squad member; Giuseppe, a sensitive, solitary, intelligent child, capable of seeing dead people. Malaria, Fascism, medicine are the topics tackled by the author in the book, and also the explosive mixture that can come from the combination of corruption with a primitive, backward, superstitious mentality extraneous to the scientific rationalism of medicine and the codified rules of civil living.—Feelmax
- In 1925, while Fascism is headed towards becoming a dictator regime, a mysterious beast kills a doctor in the Ravenna swamps: a doctor who had reported in Rome the outbreak of a malaria epidemic. The Health Ministry sends a young inspector, Carlo Rambelli, to the location: not only is he new to field inquiries, but what's more he is afraid of water. The equally mysterious death of another doctor convinces the population that the murderer is a witch who lives in the swamp, a witch who snaps like a beast and strangles like a human being, a witch who - like a bugaboo - threatens children: Borda. Rambelli is a man of science and cannot accept the idea that witches exist, but before he gets to the truth he will have to fight against superstition, fever, the Militia and against the girl he falls in love with, against the nightmares that flood his mind and against his own past that suddenly resurfaces and threatens killing him.—Feelmax
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