Certain crimes twist logic but not reality –
criminals escape and investigators are
arrested.
Kongo 2006.

For centuries, in Palermo but throughout
Southern Italy, given an understaffed or
entirely absent police, neighborhoods had
created their own security concept – house
wives and elderly people watching from
balconies for any non-familiar face walking
the streets whilst chatting among themselves.
Today, electronic surveillance has replaced
those human watchdogs. As a side effect, it
made largely disappear a core element of
Mediterranean social life – the balcony chat.
Instead, elderly people have retreated to
their apartments, spending lonely days in
front of a TV. Sad.

Stepping sideways and leaving the center
sometimes can be just the right move.
Giving others the spotlight.
Avoiding a bullet.
Or creating a new center.

Choosing this story for Skorpion for one
meant following a golden rule of literature –
only write about things you know.
Secondly, recycling bad into good by taking
a dark moment in life and transform it into a
novel twenty years later.

Rising up and walking away from old
structures and facing a new self determined
future. And having in Gerd a partner in
crime on these new steps in life…
Thank you for sharing your story