The Lost Child

You thought your child was safe with him. You were wrong.
Now he's gone, and the police is accusing your husband.
Do you really know him?
A lost child.
A family full of secrets.
A shocking truth.
In an unsettling and dreamlike Palermo, the lives of Francesco, Veronica, and Svetlana intersect. Francesco and Veronica are trapped in a crumbling marriage. To raise Matteo, they live in an armed truce. One May morning, she feels ill and asks her husband to take their son to school. Francesco is in a hurry and accuses his wife of laziness. But he's not going to work; Svetlana, his Moldovan mistress, awaits him.

Svetlana has fled the grip of traffickers through deserts and shadows, ending up sold in Tel Aviv before finding fragile freedom in Palermo. Here, in Francesco's arms, she seeks refuge from memories that never cease to torment her, far from the violent husband who knows no love.

That May morning, Francesco returns to school to pick up Matteo when the gate is closed. There are no more children. Not only that: the registers show Matteo as absent. Yet he remembers leaving him there hours earlier.

What is the school hiding?
Who has taken his son?

A plot that weaves hidden secrets, concealed confessions, and a shocking truth. A mystery hidden behind the scenes of an underground Palermo. In this secret city, the fate of a missing child becomes the heart of a hunt that involves everyone, in a desperate journey through a labyrinth of illusions, in a deadly game of mirrors to discover what really happened to the lost child.



What italian readers say about A. Pagliaro's previous books:

"Yes, five stars. A story of descent into darkness. Hard-boiled noir, brutal at times. But true. Not a single superfluous adjective. Dry and believable dialogues. Real characters. Hats off..." Anobii, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Tailored to the skin of every character, Pagliaro writes perfect dialogues: never before in Italy has the lesson of Leonard and Higgins been brought back to life with such technical skill." Anobii, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"A captivating novel, with a complex and adventurous plot that takes us through the dark canals of Utrecht in the Netherlands, to arrive at the hidden corners of Palermo's Kalsa." Anobii, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"A novel about the depths of human nature, the struggle to be true to oneself, the difficulty of being human. All narrated with a mastery that keeps your eyes glued to the pages. Few noir writers could do better." Goodreads, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Just open 'Il sangue degli altri' to encounter a masterful dialogue that feels more like cinema and theater than literature, because we can sense its smells, sounds, and humid heat." Anobii, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"His confident pen brings to life, with brief, sharp, incisive chapters, an intricate but perfectly crafted plot, immersed in the sorrowful backdrop of a merciless and conspiratorial humanity." Goodreads, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Few noir writers could do better." Goodreads, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Plot twists in rapid succession that left me breathless, and one in particular comp