PearlyBooks

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A gripping thriller set in Urbino, Raphael's birthplace, Waking Raphael is the story of a restoration - of a painting and of a community. An investigation into a nearly-forgotten war crime is sparked off when Muta, an enigmatic mute woman, stabs a Count, in the process damaging Raphael's painting 'La Muta' which has just been restored. When rumours begin to circulate about Muta the woman - that she lives in the rotting fortress, San Rocco, on the outskirts of town; that she has a secret grudge against the Count; that something terrible happened to her during the war - more and more people begin to worry that the truth will come out. There are many other 'mutes' in this small town - Francesco, the ice-cream maker who knows that to reveal his secret would be to commit suicide, Charlotte, who is incapable of expressing love, Donna, a Canadian TV presenter who 'can't shut up to save her life', but cannot speak Italian. The story is told as a series of miracles, the biggest and last, the truth finally being revealed about what happened at San Rocco during the war. Mirroring the reawakening of a national conscience in Italy in 1993, Leslie Forbes intelligently and passionately evokes the stories of each mute and Urbino's second renaissance is brought about. Beautifully-drawn characters, a wonderful sense of time and place and an omniscient narrator bring an incredible warmth to this third novel from the author whose first, Bombay Ice, was a Sunday Times bestseller.