AustLit

'Writers and artists had come here for centuries but she was neither. She was not even seeking a new lover or running away from an old one. No, her mission was altogether different. And the fact that she came in a Boeing instead of a chariot drawn by griffins should not have encouraged anyone to doubt the seriousness of her purpose. Lucy was Nemesis. She had come to settle a very old score.

'As her mother Kate lay dying, Lucy O’Connell had learnt of a rape committed in Carlton by a young Italian boy. Not the best introduction to the parent she had never known and, yes, it was a long time ago, but Lucy believes it is never too late for justice.

'Wary of the amorous Stefano’s assistance, she battles her way through Italian bureaucracy and finally traces her father, Paolo Esposito, to his restaurant by a beach in southern Italy. There she meets his wife Silvana and her own half-siblings: cheeky Andrea, studious Chiara, scatty Rosaria.

'She lives an uneasy lie with this new family. She obsesses over how to punish her father without hurting the others. Violent forces gather. Still she ignores the friends, who insist that penitence can be more real than a mumbled rosary might suggest. That la vendetta is not the work of gods but of devils.' (Publication summary)