Un piano (quasi) perfetto

About This Audiobook

*Un piano (quasi) perfetto* isn’t just another crime thriller—it’s a gut-punch of a novel where the stakes aren’t just about money or survival, but about a father’s desperate bid to outrun his own mortality. Will Leitch strips the genre down to its bones: no flashy distractions, just the suffocating tension of Lloyd McNeil, a 20-year police veteran turned terminally ill amateur criminal, as he orchestrates a heist to secure his son’s future. The prose crackles with the kind of dry, dark humor that only comes from someone who’s stared down both bureaucracy and death—and lost to both.

Andrea Failla’s narration is the audiobook’s secret weapon. His voice carries the gravelly weariness of a man who’s seen too much, but his pacing is razor-sharp, turning even mundane details (a diner coffee refill, the hum of a hospital machine) into ominous countdowns. What sets this apart from the usual thriller fare? The heist itself is almost secondary to the psychological unraveling—Leitch forces you to sit with Lloyd’s quiet panic, his reckless tenderness, and the awful math of a life reduced to months and dollar signs. The result is less *Ocean’s Eleven* and more *Breaking Bad* meets *The Treasure of the Sierra Madre*, with a distinctly Italian grit."

"review": "I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first: *Another dying-man’s-last-job story?* But *Un piano (quasi) perfetto* disarmed me within chapters. Leitch’s Lloyd isn’t a hero or an antihero—he’s a guy who’s spent two decades enforcing rules he no longer believes in, and his heist isn’t about redemption. It’s about *accounting*. The math of chemotherapy copays, of college tuition, of the exact number of months left to pull it off. That cold pragmatism makes the emotional beats land harder, especially when Lloyd’s son, Bishop, stumbles into the plot. Their scenes together are painfully real, the kind of awkward, loving friction that only exists between parents and teenagers who *almost* understand each other.

Failla’s performance is stellar, but not showy. He resists the urge to ham up the drama, letting the text breathe with a naturalism that makes Lloyd’s exhaustion palpable. My only critique? The middle act drags slightly—Leitch���s meticulous setup occasionally tips into over-explanation, as if he’s as nervous about the plan as Lloyd is. And while the Italian setting (rendered here with unobtrusive but immersive pronunciation) adds texture, a few cultural references might leave non-Italian listeners Googling. But the finale? Worth every second. It’s brutal, ambiguous, and *earned*—the kind of ending that lingers like a bruise. If you’re tired of thrillers where the bad guys are cartoonish or the heroes are invincible, this is your antidote. Just don’t expect to walk away unscathed.