Alligator’s Sense
Larry Nowak tries to avoid looking in the mirror as much as possible — the reflection staring back at him is only a pale shadow of the man he once was. Six and a half years spent in a hospital bed, in a kind of limbo he barely remembers. And the only way he found to escape what awaited him upon waking was to run. Wytago, Vermont, is small and remote enough to make him believe he might leave his painful past behind. Here, Larry tries to rebuild a daily routine: to open a new veterinary practice, make new friends, and stop being just the new kid in town. But in a small town, everyone knows everything about everyone. It doesn’t take long for people to uncover his dependence on medication, his bouts of heavy drinking, his violent mood swings. And to discover that there’s something in his past he’s desperate to keep buried. When the body of a young boy is found, all eyes turn to Larry. Even before a proper investigation begins, he’s already become the perfect suspect — the scapegoat onto whom the town can offload its guilt, a town that sees itself as spotless while hiding its own shadows behind freshly painted front doors.
With skill and precision, Guido Sgardoli crafts a taut, unflinching thriller — raw yet deeply human. A kaleidoscope of unforgettable characters leads us through a labyrinth of hatred, resentment, envy, and unexpected kindness.
By the same author or illustrator
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Eleven students. An exclusive club. Dark secrets and fatal obsessions. They are dressed like the cursed poets. They gather in a boathouse they’ve claimed as their secret hideout. They drink punch and honey, smoke opium and gamble. Their motto is in Latin: sine fine sumus. They have nicknames like Edgar Allan Poe’s characters. They are members of the Folio Club, led by a charismatic…
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Syberia
Janis, a young Polish dissident, was sentenced to a Siberian labor camp after a failed student protest — which led to his arrest and the death of his father. Now, after two years, a mysterious cosmic explosion shatters the sky: the real-life Tunguska Event of 1908. In the chaos, Janis escapes into the vast, frozen taiga. Battling hunger, cold, wild animals,…
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The Beasts
Three deadbeat robbers with animal nicknames, Lynx, Buzzard and Toad, masked with rough cotton sacks slung over their heads, take shelter in the former Boeri sanitorium in Tresigallo. A coincidence leads them to cross paths with a class of Ferrara high school students on a trip to the old hospital and so they decide to take them hostage. The Boeri,…
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Anomalya
How many mistakes, how many wrong choices would we like to delete? How many words, how many silly things do we wish we hadn’t said? What if we could go back in time? What if we could change the past and finally take control of our future? There are many pasts and many futures, each shaped by a delicate domino effect: one…
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The Greys
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The Phenomenal P.T. Heliodore
P.T. Heliodore is ten years old when he hears an animal speak for the first time. What begins as a surreal experience soon turns into something extraordinary: owls, beetles, a water snake, a blue cow on its way to New York, and a dog named Pinky all have something to say to him. P.T. has an imagination as big as the…
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Super Bomb & Captain Frizz vs the Little Poop Soldier
Two best friends. Secret identities. One mission: save the world. When a toy soldier falls into a clogged toilet and soaks up radioactive brown water, a new villain is born: the Poo Soldier—a giant, squishy, smelly monster with a mission to spread chaos and stink! As his army of brown zombies grows, only two kids with wild imaginations, super costumes, and…
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Super Bomb & Captain Frizz vs the Sausage-Man
Two best friends. Secret identities. One mission: save the world. Best friends Super Bomb and Captain Frizz dream of becoming superheroes — and when a radioactive jar of mustard falls into a butcher’s mincer, transforming a kindly butcher into the monstrous Sausage Man, their moment arrives! As Sausage Man unleashes chaos, the boys fight back with fizzy powder, clever tricks, and…
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The Stone
A circle of stones with dark powers, a wind-battered island and a boy looking for answers A haunting and emotionally charged mystery set on a remote Irish island. When a second death shakes the community, thirteen-year-old Liam begins to connect it to his mother’s recent, unexplained accident – and to a strange carved stone buried near both bodies. A bold,…
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The Mysteries of Mercurio 7 – Titian and the Wood of Shadows
An old man who lives in the top of a tower in the heart of Florence challenges three friends to a dangerous mission: to discover and solve the hidden mysteries of the art world! Mercurio is back! The room of the Venus of Urbino at the Uffizi is suddenly covered in moss and Nina, Jamal and Lorenzo find themselves in…
