After a four-day deluge, Naples is flooded. Buildings collapse, sinkholes appear. Strange events spread across the city: ghostly voices emit from the Castel dell'Ovo and a neglected child finds a singing coin. A melancholy journalist searches for meaning, as the narrative takes us into the minds of those who have suffered in the floods. Mysteriously withdrawn from publication until Pugliese's death in 2012, and only now appearing in English, Malacqua is a richly peopled portrait of a much-mythologised city.