Time on My Hands

When does a game stop being a game? And what would cause a young boy to commit an act of savage violence? In Time on My Hands by Giorgio Vasta the year is 1978 and a chilling drama is unfolding in Rome. Members of a leftist terrorist group known as the Red Brigades have kidnapped the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro and are holding him in a secret prison while broadcasting their demands to the public. Far from Rome in Palermo Sicily a trio of eleven-year-old schoolboys are following Moro''s abduction with intense interest. To their minds the terrorists are warriors striking a blow at the stifling conformity and propriety of everyday Italian life. Just like the Red Brigades the boys give themselves code names: Nimbus Radius and Flight. They shave their heads develop a secret language and begin a life of escalating crime in worshipful imitation of their heroes. But when Moro''s body is discovered in the trunk of a car riddled with bullets and as the stakes of the friends'' games grow higher Nimbus the most innocent of the three must decide just how far he is willing to go.