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216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
Allora, partiamo dall'inizio. A cosa serve un computer? Nonno, la domanda è retorica. Se ti azzardi a interrompermi ti intossico il grappino.
E un po' come il gioco delle tre carte: guardavamo nella direzione giusta, ma ci siamo concentrati sul particolare che davamo per scontato che fosse importante, cioè il contenuto di informazioni del computer, e invece abbiamo trascurato il contesto.
Difatti, nel bar è entrato un vecchietto messo lievemente peggio degli altri. È alto e macilento, con una maglietta azzurra a righine orizzontali e pantaloni color anziano; il tutto gli dona un'aria ambigua, a metà tra un lungodegente ed un evaso.
The scene might make you think of a religious ritual. Which is strange, because it takes place amid the tables outside a bar. The priest is a tall man in his thirties with a large hooked nose and a vaguely Middle Eastern air. He moves with hieratic calm between the tamarisks and the tables, his pace solemn and methodical. In his arms, he is carrying, as if it were a baby, a small laptop. […] Sometimes, at what may be thought particularly significant stations of the liturgy, he begins to make strange, vaguely cruciform signs with the computer, while his lips move in mute prayer. From a distance, only disconnected fragments of the prayer can be heard, things like, "Dammit, there was a signal here only a few seconds ago."And there you have it: the style and much of the content of the ensuing book. The "priest" is Massimo, 37, a former mathematician turned owner of the Bar Lume on the coast near Pisa. He is familiar with computers (which will become important in the plot), but his recently installed wi-fi is not working. The most frequent customers of the bar are his grandfather and three other geezers, all over 70. This is apparently the second book in the Bar Lume series, in which Massimo is called in to assist the police, and he in turn is aided, second-guessed, or downright obstructed by the geriatric quartet at the bar. Massimo himself is an attractive and interesting character, as is his smart barmaid Tiziana. I can't say the same for the four older characters, who are hard to tell apart; perhaps you need to have read the series from the beginning.