Murder on the Funicolare

Como Lake is beautiful. That doesn’t make it innocent.

Mia Hart knows that already: she is a foreigner, newly arrived in Como, still learning the rules people don’t say out loud: who gets greeted, who gets watched, who gets blamed.

She takes over a small book café near the Como–Brunate funicular, hoping for a quiet restart after her years as a consultant in London.

On a crowded ride between lake and hillside, someone dies. Not an accident, not a tragedy you can file away with condolences. A murder in plain sight: fast, clean, and almost perfectly timed to leave everyone shocked and nobody responsible.

Como reacts the way small, elegant towns do: with whispers, with smiles, with certainty that arrives long before evidence. Suddenly Mia isn’t just the new barista with an accent: she is the easiest story.

To survive, Mia has to do what outsiders always end up doing: watch harder than locals, ask questions no one likes, and follow the smallest details because on a funicular, in a small space, the truth can’t hide for long.

It only flickers.

You can reach me here: paolo@paolocasciatopubblicazioni.it