Coming Summer 2025

A summer release from Orenda Books new imprint Open Borders Press, 

The Darkest Winter by Carlo Lucarelli, translated by Joseph Farrell. 

Is due to be published in hardback and eBook on the 22nd May.

Cover reveal

What a stunner!

‘A stripped-down historical thriller loaded with tension’

 La Repubblica

Carlo Lucarelli

The author can be found on the following social media

Instagram | Twitter | BlueSky: carloluc.bsky.social

The Darkest Winter

In November 1944, in the worst winter ever known in Bologna, less than a year since the founding of the Republic of Salò, the bomb-scarred streets are filled with starving refugees who have fled the advancing Allies. The Fascist Black Brigades, the officers of the S.S. and the partisans of the Italian Resistance compete for control in bloody warfare.
 
Comandante De Luca, once “the most brilliant investigative officer in Bologna” and now working for the Political Police in a building that doubles as a torture facility, finds himself in over his head when three murders land on his desk: a professor shot through the eye, an engineer beaten to death, and a German corporal left to be gnawed on by rats in a flooded cellar. Losing sleep and his peace of mind, De Luca must close all three cases with ten lives on the line: the Italian hostages who will face a Nazi firing squad if the corporal’s killing is not solved to their satisfaction.
 
As he threads his way through a web of personal and political motivations, risking his life with every step, De Luca will uncover to his own cost the secrets awaiting him in the frozen heart of Bologna.