“Nowhere Fast” is the second book in the PI Giorgia Cantini series where, in Bologna, she investigates the disappearance of Vanessa Liverani, a high-class call girl. There Giorgia uncovers a sordid world of prosperous businessmen, doctors, and lawyers who hire prostitutes for private sex parties. She loathes the predatory behavior of these apparently respectable men — men as empty and rotten as the contemporary society they represent. Much of “Nowhere Fast” takes place, however, outside Bologna, in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna around the village of Sasso Marconi, among the sandstone cliffs of Contrafforte Pliocenico Natural Reserve. But even there, Giorgia fails to find an idyllic existence as she gets to know four generations of the Liverani family, whose troubled lives are rooted in the older traditions and rhythms of rural life. Between these two worlds, Vanessa’s young son Willy is trapped. Surrounded by family, he is tragically on his own. Meanwhile, Giorgia herself struggles between memories of her unruly and joyous youth — where the discovery of sex played a big role — and the bitter realities of her adult life. In Giorgia’s view, growing up comes to be seen as a layer of ice slowly spreading over our ability to have strong feelings and authentic personal lives. “Nowhere Fast” was originally published in Italian in 2006. It is second in the PI Giorgia Cantini series after “Quo Vadis, Baby?” (Italica Press, 2018). Four more Cantini novels followed “Nowhere Fast”: “Di tutti e di nessuno” (2009), “Cosa sai della notte” (2012), “Senza ragione apparente” (2015, special mention at Premio Scerbanenco 5), and “Come la pioggia sul cellophane” (2020). Introduction, First English translation, 192 pp. Grazia Verasani was born in Bologna in 1964, a city where she still lives and writes. She is an author of novels, plays, and screenplays as well as a musician who composes, performs, and records. She graduated from the Accademia d'arte drammatica in Rome at the age of twenty. After some work with the Teatro Stabile d'Abruzzo and with the Teatro Stabile di Torino, she began writing, while continuing her work as an actor.Originally published in 2006, "Nowhere Fast," featuring the PI Giorgia Cantini, was preceded in the series by "Quo Vadis, Baby?" (Italica Press, 2018), which was directed as a TV Series for Sky Cinema by Guido Chiesa (2008). Four more Cantini novels followed: "Di tutti e di nessuno" (2009), "Cosa sai della notte" (2012), "Senza ragione apparente" (2015, special mention at Premio Scerbanenco 5), and "Come la pioggia sul cellophan" (2020).Verasani won the 2011 National Dramatic Art Festival of Pesaro award for best author for her play "Maternity Blues (From Medea)," which was later made into a film that won the 2012 Tonino Guerra Prize for best screenplay. In 2016, Verasani published the epistolary novel "Lettera a Dina." Her most recent novel is "Hotel Madridda" (2024). She wrote the screenplay for the TV series "Amati fantasmi" for RAI 5 (2021) and with Andrea Adriatico and Stefano Casi, the screenplay for Adriatico's film "Gli anni amari" (2019). In 2023, she was awarded the Premio Veraldi alla Carriera. Taylor Corse is an Professor Emeritus of English of English at Arizona State University. Professor Corse has written extensively about the literary culture of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, including such writers as John Dryden, Aphra Behn, Anne Conway, Alexander Pope, and Tobias Smollett.He has also translated works from Latin and Italian, most recently the selected poetry of Ferruccio Benzoni. Enrico Minardi is a Teaching Professor at the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University, where he teaches Italian and French. He has previously worked in several American Universities and has studied in Florence, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin. Among his last publications, L'esperienza del rock. Vasco Rossi (Doppiozero 2023) and Abitare il tempo. Metafora, storia e comunità nell'opera di Enrico Palandri (Doppiozero 2021).