Alan Friedman becomes a fiction writer with "La mano di Orfeo" (The Hand of Orpheus), his debut novel — in bookstores from October 13 via Baldini e Castoldi — which tells the story of an international intrigue. "There is a power that cannot be seen. It never appears in newspaper headlines. It answers to no one. Alexander Grayson has encountered it. He tried to leave it behind. He did not succeed," reads the intriguing blurb.
"La mano di Orfeo," the first adventure of Alex Grayson, is the story of an international intrigue spanning history, finance and politics — a thriller designed to keep readers on the edge of their seats until the last page, a novel about power written by someone who has observed and reported on that power up close throughout his long journalistic career. Alan Friedman is one of the few international journalists to have reported from the inside on the mechanisms of global power. He has written for the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He is a four-time winner of the British Press Awards. He is the author of numerous books on politics, finance and power, including biographies of Gianni Agnelli and Silvio Berlusconi, some of which have been translated abroad and adapted by Netflix. The Hand of Orpheus is his first novel. In it, he tells the story of Alexander Grayson, who lives in seclusion in the Tuscan hills after a dazzling career that took him to the heart of the corridors of power: the Delta Force, the CIA, all the way to the White House. He has changed his life and become one of the most authoritative international journalists, but a phone call reopens a door he thought he had closed behind him forever. It takes just one word — Orpheus — to take Alex back forty years. Behind that name, he had discovered the existence of a clandestine network, an invisible hand capable of infiltrating governments, intelligence services, major banks and military establishments around the world, bending them to its own interests without leaving a trace.
He had sworn never to speak of it again, but someone has decided that his silence is no longer enough. When the past comes looking for him, inconvenient witnesses begin to disappear, old compromising documents suddenly resurface, and Alex realises he has no choice — you don't leave that world without permission. From the corridors of Washington to the banks of Zurich, from the palaces of Rome to Russian intelligence services, he is drawn into a global game of numbered accounts, top-secret dossiers and arms trafficking. A deadly game in which those who talk pay the price, and those who are no longer useful are eliminated.
Because Orpheus is everywhere, and it has its own rules.
