[Deathwatch] Franco Lucentini, mystery and science fiction writer, 81

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Italian Sci-Fi Writer Lucentini Commits Suicide
Mon Aug 5, 9:41 AM ET

MILAN, Italy (Reuters) - Italian mystery and science fiction writer
Franco Lucentini, 81, committed suicide Monday after a long battle with
lung cancer, police said. 

Lucentini, who achieved international fame in 1992 with a new version
of Charles Dickens' uncompleted classic "The Mystery of Edwin Drood,"
threw himself into the stairwell of his house in the northern Italian
city of Turin. 

His wife found the body, local police said. 

Lucentini published a series of science fiction and mystery novels
co-written with Carlo Fruttero and was director of a science fiction
magazine. 

In 1992, Lucentini and Fruttero made it to the best seller lists across
Europe and the United States with their "The D. Case or the Truth About
the Mystery of Edwin Drood." 

In a new twist to Dickens' last novel, which was halted midway by the
author's death, Lucentini and Fruttero turned to great fictional
detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot to solve the
mystery. 

In 2000, Lucentini won Italy's Campiello prize for his life's work.