A work of incisive political and cultural history in the shape of a rollicking caper novel, "The Mollino Set" examines the life and work of enigmatic architect and designer Carlo Mollino against Italy's postwar reconception of its fascist past. In 2017, Lytle Shaw, a middle-aged professor at New York University, receives an intriguing offer from a stranger in Belgium to write a text on Carlo Mollino - Italian architect, erotic furniture designer, Alpine skiing theorist, and aerial daredevil. Traveling to northern Italy over the course of the next year to conduct what he calls "field research," Shaw comes to realize that Mollino's conflicted legacy offers a unique window on the role that postwar Italian politics and culture played in the country's reimagining of itself as a victim, rather than a proponent, of fascism. But almost from the very beginning, his on-the-ground investigations are stymied by a series of mysterious, and increasingly perilous, incidents that suggest he is but a pawn in a larger game beyond his powers of comprehension. The skein of intrigue begins to unravel, and so does Professor Shaw as he comes to understand that the only way to survive the malicious plot hatched against him is to adopt-despite his constitutional timidity and innumerable physical shortcomings - Mollino's swashbuckling style as he is chased down the ski slopes of the Aosta Valley and across the rooftops of Turin.