This is, I think, the first book by the author that I have read. He has written a number of fiction and non-fiction books, and this book, Scarpia, is his latest novel, published first in 2015. Scarpia may be familiar to those who know of Puccini’s opera Tosca, as the ‘villain’ in the piece, who plays a pivotal role in the life of the heroine of the opera, Tosca. Here, the author has ‘reimagined’ Scarpia’s life, and built that into the background of Europe through the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a Europe, and indeed an Italy which is torn between its own nationalistic fervour and the globalisation policies of an upstart from Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte.



The story takes us right through Scarpia’s life from 1777 when his father Luigi Scarpia and his wife and young son Vitellio return to Scarpia on the fall of Luigi Scarpia’s patron the Marchese Tanucci. The young Scarpia grows up and is determined to make more of his life than his father ever did. He finds patrons, joins the armed forces, and with his friend and servant Spoletta makes his way. Parallel with Scarpia’s life is that of young Floria Tosca, a peasant girl whose beautiful voice is combined with her stunning beauty to allow her to forge a very different life from that of her parents; her patrons find opportunities to promote her, and her voice to the rich and the powerful, and she lives her life to the full in the glare of the moment.



What happens when the paths of Scarpia and Tosca cross became the story of Puccini’s opera, but here, while we follow that story, we are also privileged to have seen from whence both Scarpia and Tosca came, and to see what led their lives to that momentous crossroads in their, and Italy’s history. Even though I knew the ending of Puccini’s Tosca, and was familiar with the story, I found that the resolution of this book still surprised me, and in a good way. The author has taken the lives of two people in an Italy, and a Europe which is changing around them. The historical background is beautifully written, in a very engaging way, and the whole book is a real triumph of an historical novel. Whether you know Puccini’s story of Tosca or not, this book is engaging, interesting and thoroughly engrossing from beginning to end.