Runaway Horses

And now for something completely different. Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini were well-known Italian authors who co-authored several mysteries, throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, under their surnames of Fruttero & Lucentini. Their best-known works are The Lover of No Fixed Abode, set in Venice, and The Sunday Woman, which was made into a film starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jacqueline Bisset. Runaway Horses takes place in Siena during the Palio of Siena, the biannual horse race that the Sienese have been celebrating since the 13th century. It features lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife, Valeria, who are traveling from their home in Milan to Siena, visiting Valeria’s brother along the way. But the two never make it to the farm; instead, they encounter a violent storm and take refuge in a nearby, sprawling estate. Here they find a most idiosyncratic group, including Puddu, the best known of the Palio’s jockeys. Fruttero and Lucentini take the reader deep into the arcane practices of the Palio, which are full of plots and counterplots, while Enzo and Valeria discover their attraction not only to each other but to other residents on the estate as well. Readers with an interest in Siena may enjoy the exhibit Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350, which is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum and will travel to Britain’s National Gallery in spring 2025.