“Don’t you feel more liberated now, my wild honey pie?”
Turin, 2010. College dropout Susanna Marino has been tasked by a mysterious firm with finding a print of an obscure short film in exchange for a lucrative payout.
The catch: the star of the movie, Un día en Lisboa, is Soledad Miranda, the ill-fated muse of maverick director Jess Franco. And the film is said to be cursed.
As her search whisks her from a nightclub for cinephiles called Blue Velvet to the coast of Portugal and into the heart of a crazed film collector’s labyrinthian menagerie, Susanna uncovers an arcane connection between Franco’s “Dark Lady” and a nightmarish figure from her past. Soon, she learns that almost everyone she meets has designs on the movie, Soledad, or Susanna herself—and some have murder on their minds.
To unravel the mysteries surrounding that fateful day in Lisbon four decades ago, she’ll have to plunge headlong into all that black...
Thrillingly adventurous and cinematic, Cristiana Astori’s All That Black reflects the influence of Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento and Sergio Martino while evoking the writings of Alain Robbe-Grillet, JG Ballard and Trent Dalton. First published in Italy in 2011 as part of Il Giallo Mondadori, it is presented here for the first time in English through a translation by Patrick Moroney, and includes an afterword by noted genre expert Carlos Aguilar.
“Astori is a writer of sharp, clever fiction—a bright star rapidly expanding her light in the literary heavens. Don’t miss her work!” — Joe R. Lansdale, author of Bubba Ho-Tep and The Bottoms
“This is an admirably modern work addressed to an insatiably cine-literate, voraciously acquisitive readership. Cristiana’s prose is bright, lively, mystical and sensual in its attention to light, color and textures; I turn the pages with a spring in my step.” — Tim Lucas, author of Throat Sprockets and Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark
“A gripping mystery that is not only a treat for rabid giallo fans and demanding cinephiles, but a moving love letter to a one-of-a-kind filmmaker and his equally singular muse.” — Roberto Curti, author of Italian Giallo in Film and Television: A Critical History and co-author of The Films of Jesús Franco, 1953-1966
Cristiana Astori is a writer and librarian based in Rome. Her Susanna Cycle, of which All That Black is the initial entry, has garnered a dedicated cult following in Italy. She has translated the works of several authors from English to Italian, including Jeffery Deaver, Douglas Preston, Kim Newman, Richard Stark and several entries in Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series. Cristiana’s other works include the graphic novel Love Will Tear Us Apart (illustrated by Alberto Lingua) and two short story collections, The Mouse King and Other Dark Fables and After Hours: 22 Tales of Mystery.
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