Esoteric Crimes

Esoteric Crimes
Stefano Vignaroli

Sudden disappearances worry inhabitants of Trioria, a little town in the Ligurian inland. Caterina Ruggeri, police chief, will have to shed light on the mysterious crimes by going back up to four centuries before: the murder of a witch seems to be hiding the causes of an esoteric vendetta. After being for several years responsible for the Dogs' Unit of the State Police, Caterina Ruggeri, Law graduate, is appointed Police Chief and assigned to the Police District in Imperia. The newly appointed Police Chief, having just arrived at her new working place, will find herself involved in a thorny investigation, during which she'll have to face people linked to an esoteric sect, in a town, that is witches' place par excellence: Triora. Starting from the finding of a burnt woman's body, at the end of the operations of extinguishing a wood fire, Doctor Ruggeri, helped by her vice, Inspector Giampieri, an ex soldier expert in informations technology and sport cars' driver, will have to extend her investigation to occurrences that had happened in those places in far away times. Important protagonist of the adventure is Doctor Ruggeri's dog, Furia, her loyal Springer Spaniel, matchless trail searcher, that in more than in one occasion will be of precious help.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface (#ulink_f26b53bb-5888-590e-8682-0fb353f236a0)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_df74d569-2a47-5202-a844-2081bb074df2)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_386f8e4d-b43a-50cb-abd1-2d1dce5f00a4)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_c8371d17-b884-56fe-8b29-07a8d74f964a)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_6eaabf3b-bcbc-5a46-8cf2-565a0dd5d206)

Chapter 5 (#ulink_77c98ab6-f967-5519-b778-01ab07df79d1)

Chapter 6 (#ulink_1d7f3668-ad2d-57b4-8b36-aa05411d8ce9)

Chapter 7 (#ulink_96da9dfc-07f6-5876-b1a2-0396fb2d7bfd)

Chapter 8 (#ulink_a8b996ed-fb73-55d6-bf13-a66bcf7975df)

Chapter 9 (#ulink_3d1261f0-c18a-5f78-a319-070223993664)

Chapter 10 (#ulink_987b9c96-6dc2-5663-999e-7cc8c8173b79)

Chapter 11 (#ulink_cfc3669b-ff1f-58dc-8987-a5906d7f951f)

Chapter 12 (#ulink_2ed764f4-2746-5c42-843f-a4b1bab92ea0)

Chapter 13 (#ulink_35274479-874d-5853-a064-3f6d596c9ffe)

Chapter 14 (#ulink_dd178349-2e60-52cc-a81f-db5907fbc412)

Chapter 15 (#ulink_5616f0b0-60e3-57eb-a127-bc49aeea7d5d)

Chapter 16 (#ulink_263c62fd-d6e8-5684-88cb-adc4a8bfba67)

Chapter 17 (#ulink_f299a5d1-fefc-5a96-918a-86e6d0375921)

Chapter 18 (#ulink_370b5402-01ec-5c0e-9798-2ceb11750eff)

EPILOGUE (#ulink_d12536b5-4716-5a58-a3bf-0c5048e34da2)

AUTHOR’S NOTE AND THANKS (#ulink_e353d544-527a-5308-9a33-b334aeaa5f9b)

Stefano Vignaroli

Esoteric crimes

Police Chief Caterina Ruggeri’s

First Investigation

Translater: Gabriela Gubenco

NOVEL

ESOTERIC CRIMES

Stefano Vignaroli

Police Chief Caterina Ruggeri’s First Investigation

Copyright © 2011 - 2018 Stefano Vignaroli

All rights reserved

© 2020 Tektime for English edition

Translated by Gabriela Gubenco

ISBN

Website http://www.stedevigna.com

Contact E-mail stedevigna@gmail.com

Preface

What does a series of mysterious disappearances in Trioria, Liguria, have in common with a witch’s murder that happened more than four centuries before? Is it possible for two occurrences so chronologically distant to be related?

A real mystery on which police chief Caterina Ruggeri will have to shed light at all costs. She. will have to retrace a gloomy trail that really seems to have esoteric roots.

That is how “Esoteric Crimes” presents itself, as a novel that tastes like blood and has the color of the starless nights. It is a thrilling noir able to leave the readers breathless and making them feel that sinister tingling that one can perceive only by reading a good thriller.

A straightforward book that's not distant from reality. But at the same time, with its esoterism, it seems so far from it, as if it wants to escape it, bringing and dragging the reader in a world of fantasy, imagination, and … thrills!

Filippo Munaro

Prologue

Summer 1989

Border between Nepal and People’s Republic of China

When the Sherpa reached the umpteenth suspension bridge, they explained, in broken English, to the two women that have hired them in Kathmandu that they would never go beyond that point. They were not allowed to challenge their deities; they were too afraid. None of them has ever ventured beyond that bridge. Those, who in the past have dared to do so, never returned. If the women wanted to continue, they would have to do that at their own risk and peril. They would leave them the bare essentials to carry in their backpacks, some food, some chocolate bars, a camping stove, and the light two-seater igloo tent. They would wait for them for three days, and no more. The day was clear and, the rarefied air of almost four thousand meters of altitude gave the sky an intense blue color. The tops of the highest mountains on Earth challenged, with their snowy peaks, that same blue sky. Aurora and Larìs pulled out the warm Goretex windbreakers, which until then have protected them from the sudden blizzards, that they often have faced during the previous five days. Their purpose was certainly not to experience the thrill of an extreme vacation but to reach the Temple of Knowledge and Regeneration and to meet the Grand Patriarch. They would draw on the universal knowledge preserved in the temple and thus become members of the highest level of the sect. They already knew that from that point on, they would have to proceed alone, relying on their intuition and their powers. If they failed, if they went the wrong way, it would be impossible for them to save themselves. They would only find death in those mountains. Aurora paid the agreed-upon to the Sherpa chief, telling him that if he wanted, he could leave immediately. But the man with the Asian features, who held the reins of a lama, shook his head and repeated: «Three days.»