The Scandal of the Century

Gabriel Garcia Marquez – the greatest writer of the 20th century, Nobel Prize winner, author of the world-famous novels One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Autumn of the Patriarch. Throughout his life, Marquez repeatedly emphasized that he primarily considered himself a journalist and devoted a significant part of his time to reporting activities. Moreover – he insisted that even his artistic texts were structured like newspaper articles. However, those who read his journalism will confidently say that the opposite was true: Marquez wrote his newspaper and magazine articles not as dry reports, but as true works of art. And this is fully applicable to the central work of the collection – The Scandal of the Century, written in the genre of documentary detective fiction. The author masterfully captures the reader's attention from the very first words and does not let go until the very last page. * * * On April 9, 1953, the young Roman beauty Wilma Montesi left home and did not return. A day later, her body – partially undressed, but without signs of sexual violence – was washed ashore by the ocean waves. The police suspect an accident. Indeed, who could have harmed the daughter of a respectable carpenter and the happy fiancée of a young policeman? Thus begins the dizzying criminal story that shook all of Italy, involving gangsters and pop stars, the golden youth and high-ranking politicians, actresses, adventurers, and elite escorts.