Party Animal

It’s the beginning of summer. Isa M., a literature student, is throwing a party at her family’s villa on the outskirts of Turin. The music is loud, the drinks are flowing, and the garden is packed with friends – and maybe a few gatecrashers. The only guest who hasn’t arrived yet is Ezio, the boy she’s falling in love with. Then an anonymous gift turns up on the kitchen table: a bottle of wine with a card that reads, Unless someone touches the cassowary before one a. m., Ezio dies . At first it seems like a prank. Except Ezio still isn’t answering his phone. And no one’s sure who brought the bottle. Or what, exactly, a cassowary is . . . As the hours tick by – and the undergrads wade further into a heady mix of alcohol, drugs, jealousy, lust and dread – the gravity of the dare sinks in.