Lo Schiaccianoci

Festivals

THE RUMBLING OF THE WATERS

Three years have passed since Renzo Guidici attempted to kill Gabriele D’Annunzio in the final days of the Fiume occupation. Renzo now works for Mussolini at the Interior Ministry in Rome, pursuing anarchists and others considered threats to the new Fascist regime. Meanwhile, powerful leaders within the Fascist Party, including Roberto Farinacci, are growing impatient with the compromises Mussolini makes to consolidate his position as prime minister. They want a second wave of violence to purge Italy of all who oppose the Fascist revolution. When the Gleno Dam in the Italian Alps collapses, killing hundreds of people, Mussolini is quick to blame anti-Fascists. Renzo is sent to the disaster scene and discovers signs of dynamite usage that could implicate anarchists in the collapse. But soon he learns of the dam’s faulty design and the construction shortcuts ordered by its well-connected owner, who happens to be a client of the ruthless Farinacci. Renzo’s report to the ministry triggers a chain of events that follows him from Rome to D’Annunzio’s villa in the scenic Lake Garda region and then to America, plunging him into the power struggles inflaming the early years of Fascist rule. Torn between his beautiful wife and the alluring young French woman he meets on a train—and haunted by memories of a dead woman from his Fiume days—Renzo must balance his conscience and love of country against the conflicting demands of the party. The Rumbling of the Waters is a thriller set in a world of betrayal and violence where desired ends are used to justify increasingly drastic means. Picking up the story begun in Fiume Restoral, it is a gritty look at the vulnerability of an individual in a predatory system.

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