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THE ALCHEMYST PRINCE
WHO PREDICTS MODERN CRIMINOLOGY
(…and an American writer who writes in Italian)

An American author that writes a thriller in Italian is quite unique, U.S.A. are the home of best authors of this kind of literature. But if the writer chooses an Italian prince of XVIII century as detective and main character of his story, then the matter gets sensational. It happens in the last novel of Nathan Gelb.

Il quadro dei delitti an investigation of the Prince of Sansevero is an up to date, ambiguous and thrilling novel that mixes real facts and fiction. The prologue is the disappearance of an unknown but authentic copy of the painting “The Marriage Feast at Cana” by Hieronymus Bosch.

A painting with a knights templar influence hides a mystical secret so important that to discover it, killing is allowed. In fact when it reappear in Brittany in the half of XVIII century, the painting trig an homicide urge with a chilling series of ritual and sexual homicides made by a serial killer, master of an evil sect that follow a twisted alchemy that mix knives and alembics, torture tools and vials. Alchemy is an ancient and mysterious Art, brave dream (transmute vile metals in gold), passionate research (elixir of eternal-life or philosopher's stone), more or less unconscious manipulation (of swills, filters and magic dusts) Maybe something more, with its symbols and arcane formulation: precognition of modern ambitions of genetics, nuclear physics and psychoanalysis that shares aspiration fo research and knowledge of material, spirit and nature.

Nathan Gelb, with an incomparable taste for the surprise and a deep knowledge of the Italian language and history, to solve the mystery, transforms Raimondo de Sangro, Prince of Sansevero into a detective (or a detector so called by Benedictus XIV who hired him for this very tricky investigation).
The Prince of Sansevero, the well known Neapolitan alchemist, Grand Master of the Freemasonry, bold and mocking inventor, unfairly accused of dark fame by his contemporaneous, was an historical, fascinating and discussed figure. This sulphureous character, always living in danger, just a step before inquisition and excommunicate will solve this apparently inexplicable case.

In this novel Gelb, versatile spirit and sharp humour, utilize his solid culture and his enormous knowledge of that thrilling century.
He based his works on a rare manuscripts of the Prince and ancient chronicles offering to Raimondo two modern tools used by modern criminology: the graphology analysis and, incredible but true, the fingerprints. Investigative techniques already known by Sansevero, discovered a century before by some pathfinders from Bologna (Baldi, Malpighi) and then revised by de Sangro.
Techniques joined with some unscientific tricks (smoking could be dangerous) to unmask the cruel serial killer in the dramatic ending scene, the eternal fight between true and false came to unpredictable end.

Il quadro dei delitti is an original, devastating and deceptive story, it will excite passion and dark questions in the readers.