Waking Raphael - Tapa dura

When a series of apparent miracles breaks out in the idyllic city of Urbino, Italy, the birthplace of Raphael, restoration begins on one of the famed artist's enigmatic paintings in the hopes of locating a secret clue, a situation that prompts a shocking act of violence by a modern-day speech-disabled woman.

La Muta, "the mute woman." Amidst a country rocked by scandal and corruption, inhabitants of the idyllic city of Urbino, Italy, birthplace of Raphael, are more concerned with a sudden outbreak of miracles than with politics. But what unspeakable secret lies hidden in Raphael's enigmatic painting? Its restoration will drive a living mute to a shocking act of violence and spark an investigation into a nearly forgotten war crime and a series of events that will shatter the silence gripping this community forever.

Both a mesmerizing thriller and a passionate exploration of the power of truth to effect reconciliation and restore faith, Waking Raphael spins a tantalizing web of silence and lies to recreate an Italy where the romantic and the violent, the comic and the tragic, are spellbindingly interwoven.