Strani disegni

I’ll admit, I side-eyed the premise at first—*drawings as murder clues*? It sounds gimmicky until Uketsu makes it visceral. The opening scene, where a detective stares at a victim’s final sketch (a jagged, almost abstract shape), had me pausing the audiobook to *study* the mental image. That’s the hook: this isn’t about solving a crime; it’s about *interpreting* it, like a nightmare you can’t wake up from. Rocchi’s performance is masterful in its restraint. He doesn’t *act* the roles so much as *channel* them—his voice drops to a gravelly whisper for the killer’s POV chapters, but it’s his delivery of the child’s dialogue that’s truly unsettling. The kid isn’t just a plot device; Rocchi gives him a tremulous, *knowing* cadence that suggests he’s seen more than he should. My only critique? The pacing stumbles in the middle act, where the detective’s research into obscure art symbolism drags. A tighter edit could’ve maintained the early tension. And while the ending lands with a gut-punch, the final reveal about the blog’s illustrations feels slightly undercooked—like Uketsu had one too many ideas and couldn’t bear to kill any of them. Still, the audio production is flawless: no distracting edits, no volume spikes, just Rocchi’s voice and the creeping dread of what those *strani disegni* really mean. If you love crime fiction that lingers in the uncanny—think *The Black Painting* meets *True Detective*’s first season—this is your next obsession. Just don’t listen before bed.