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East and West of Greenwich passing through caput mundi: The balance of deception
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Feb 18 2026
Pages: 246
Weight: 0.64
Height: 0.56 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The novel we have before us is a contemporary fresco with noir and cosmopolitan overtones, an ambitious work that blends politics, business, international intrigue, and romantic dynamics with a narrative direction reminiscent of the best cinematic thrillers. The narrative moves like a mobile camera, fluid and strategic, capable of following the protagonists through flashbacks and continuous geographical shifts-from Rome to Venezuela, Lebanon, Egypt, and Cuba, passing through tense scenarios such as Afghanistan, Turkey, Georgia, and the Black Sea. Each location is not just a backdrop, but becomes an active part of the narrative fabric, enhancing the geopolitical and moral scenario in which the characters move.
At the center of this international intrigue, Deborah-a freelance journalist from Siena-is one of the most multifaceted and unsettling female characters in contemporary fiction.
Beautiful, intelligent, ambitious, calculating, but also capable of genuine feelings, Deborah embodies the eternal conflict between desire and conscience. The reader is constantly challenged: following her means accepting a morally ambiguous, sometimes unpleasant, but undoubtedly true character.
Her relationship with Robert, an honest rum merchant of Anglo-Saxon origin, triggers the central question of the entire novel: how much can we trust what drives human choices? The love between the two, born of deception, evolves into something real-or so it seems. Deborah's confession, the furious argument, her decision to tell the truth (or perhaps only part of it) creates a narrative fracture that divides readers. Is she a woman redeeming herself? Or is it just another strategic maneuver to avoid losing control?
A world of light and shade
But the novel is not just about Deborah. Around her moves a chorus of ambiguous, opportunistic, criminal, and idealistic characters, all linked in a network of business - both legal and illegal - that calls into question the very concept of honesty. Roman oilmen, a Calabrian friend involved in arms trafficking, corrupt presidents, dirty money routes, parallel diplomacy built on cigars, rum, and personal favors: everything contributes to creating a powerful and raw picture of the contemporary world.
The novel lays bare how the links between politics, economics, and crime are often more intricate than fiction itself. Yet, in the midst of this global disorder, the theme of friendship emerges-the unlikely friendship between Robert and Castro, the fictitious friendship between Deborah and the oilmen, the ambiguous friendship with the baron-and above all, the illusion of love, which is perhaps the only commodity that does not obey precise rules.
The ending: judgment suspended
The ending is masterful in its ambiguity: Deborah survives a car accident, discovers she is pregnant, perhaps by Robert, and decides-in a gesture that could be read as redemption or simply an attempt to ease her conscience-to donate the three million dollars to Emergency. The phone call to Robert closes the narrative circle, but does not untangle the ethical knot. Is it too late? Will Robert return? Has Deborah really changed?
This is a story that offers no easy answers. It is a work that speaks of power, manipulation, authentic feelings, and opportunism. Deborah, in particular, is the perfect symbol of an era in which truth is elusive and human motivations are always layered.
An intense, lucid, choral novel that does not presume to moralize but forces the reader to ask questions. The true success of this work lies precisely here: in the space it leaves open between absolution and condemnation. A novel that stays with you, like an unspoken secret.
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