#RivetingReviews: John Munch reviews THE PERFECT CIRCLE by Claudia Petrucci, translated by Anne Milano Appel

It would not be wholly outlandish for the youthful Italian author Claudia Petrucci to lay claim to developing a fresh sub-genre of modern novel-writing. Calling her latest work The Perfect Circle a Rubik’s Cube of a book would be neither an insult nor a tongue-in-cheek putdown. Rather it would be a fair designation that recognised her skill in constructing a work of sometimes fiendish elusiveness. Just as important, if not more so, is that she manages to untangle most of the curved and convoluted events in her creation without stress-testing credibility to the point of destruction.

Far more than a straightforward linear ‘whodunnit’, The Perfect Circle is more a ‘who did what to whom and when and why?’, and this may test the patience and concentration of some readers. Its two principal protagonists are Lidia and Irene. The first is a gamine twenty-two-year-old university student, who dies mysteriously in a ‘tragic accident’, plunging twenty-six feet ‘without a scream’ from the third floor of a house and ending her love affair with the building’s ambitious architect. It is left to Irene, an ambitious Ducati-riding broker specialising in estate foreclosures, to organise an auction to sell the house where Lidia died.

Out of these skeletal lineaments Petrucci weaves her tale. It has already been snapped for cinematic conversion, which may be a format that in this particular instance is more suitable for clarity than the written word. Either way Petrucci has sealed her place as a writer to watch. Her debut novel, The Performance, earned wide critical plaudits and won her the Premio Flaiano Giovano, an Italian writing award for young authors. Hers is a name to conjure with in future.

Reviewed by John Munch

THE PERFECT CIRCLE

Written by Claudia Petrucci

Translated by Anne Milano Appel

Published by World Editions (2026)

September 2026 #RivetingReviews titles are available to buy from bookshop.org.

John Munch started his journalistic career as a reporter and sub-editor on the Cambridge News. He then worked for the Sheffield Morning Telegraph, The Guardian and the London Evening Standard. In the 1970s, he reported for the Toronto Star, before spending twenty-five years as a sub-editor and occasional feature writer at the Financial Times.

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