A Butler and Bartorelli mystery by Val Culley
In this first book in the Butler and Bartorelli series, journalist Kate Butler has travelled to Bergamo in northern Italy to investigate the circumstances of the sudden death of her cousin.
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| Bergamo's beautiful Piazza Vecchia |
The novel, which was published in 2014, is the first in a
series featuring the characters of Kate Butler, a freelance journalist, and her
partner Steve Bartorelli, who has just retired from the police force he has
served for 30 years, having reached the rank of Detective Chief Inspector.
Sophie had been living in an apartment in Bergamo’s Città
Alta and much of the action in the novel takes place within the 16th century
walls surrounding the high city. Although her death looks suspicious at first,
the local police do not believe there is enough evidence for them to open a
murder enquiry and so Kate Butler tries to get some answers about her cousin's death.
Kate visits many of the places in the city with Donizetti
connections and her enquiries even take her out to Lago d’Iseo and into the
countryside around San Pellegrino Terme. But after her own life is threatened
and there has been another mysterious death in the Città Alta, her partner,
Steve Bartorelli, joins her in Bergamo to help her unravel the mystery and trap
the person responsible for the deaths.
The book enables the reader to go along with the
investigators for the ride and enjoy Bergamo’s architecture and scenery while
savouring the many descriptions of local food and wine.
It has been written in a style designed to appeal to anyone
who enjoys the ‘cosy’ crime fiction genre in English literature and the setting
has been used to appeal to readers who enjoy detective novels set in Italy.
The novel puts the spotlight on many of Bergamo’s main
attractions, such as Piazza Vecchia, with the Campanone, the Palazzo della
Ragione and the Biblioteca Civica. The plot of the novel particularly features
the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Donizetti Museum.
