In 1939, a father disappears from his home in Avetrana, a small town in the ‘heel’ of Italy, leaving the 7-year-old Pasquale Carone as sole breadwinner, forced to steal produce from the fields to keep his family alive. Ten years on, he has to rescue his older sister, Andrea, from near ruination in Taranto, causing his family to go on the run from town to town, hiding from the chasing mafia. Meanwhile, he takes up metal detecting, searching for ancient coins, and he quickly finds wealth in this novel enterprise. Falling in love with Stefania they move to Napoli, but calamity strikes and he has to return to yet another small Puglian town to start life again. Soon summoned to Rome to help his troubled younger sister, Maria, he gets caught up in the swinging-sixties nightlife and sinks to his lowest ebb of despair.
Will he ever return to his homeland to discover treasure in the fields? Will he ever be reunited with his true love Stefania? Will he and the Carone family ever find happiness? In three decades of family ups and downs much can eventuate against the backdrop of a rapidly- changing, post-war Italy…
published April 2019, no sales yet
Three days later Pasquale found himself again in front of the counter at Mario’s, in both good humour and better clothes. He had cleaned himself up, gone to Brindisi and found a medium-priced gentlemen’s outfitters and treated himself to his very first suit. Dark brown with cream thin pinstripe and very handsome indeed. Even a number of ladies approved out of the corner of their eye. How did ladies not go cross-eyed, Pasquale laughed to himself. He wondered how good the news would be, for he was sure the jewellery was special. Hints of gold and silver, with corners of sparkling stone, had lain under the black of natural aging by 2000 years of soil and rain and sun. “Boss, he’s back!” “Yeh, Pasquale, right?
"Thanks. Now, remember, not a word about their value.”
“You sure your friend’s right, boss? He ain’t really no expert, you know. He grew up with me in Andrand and as far as I know never went to university or any posh college.”
“Toni, knock it off. He’s spent years, well, most of his life dealing with this stuff. There ain’t nothing he don’t know.
