Francis Palumbi

Francis Palumbi writes psychological and domestic suspense — stories of ordinary households where something has gone quietly, irretrievably wrong.

Italian by birth, he spent years in digital marketing, where he learned to read patterns of attention, hesitation, and false confidence. The same instincts eventually drew him toward fiction: the gap between what people show and what they actually want, the silence that follows a polite lie, the rooms where families perform versions of themselves.

His debut novel, A Name for the Dead, follows a Ukrainian au pair who begins to suspect that the grieving family she works for has buried a secret far more disturbing than the daughter they say they lost.

Palumbi writes in the slow-burn tradition of B.A. Paris, Lisa Jewell, and Ashley Audrain — novels where tension builds through accumulation rather than spectacle.

He lives in Italy and is at work on his second novel.