Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions

Hard-drinking investigator from Munich proves to be more erratic than Etna

Mario Giordano's mystery begins with a
body on a Sicilian beach

Auntie Poldi, a larger-than-life character and amateur sleuth, takes centre stage in this debut crime novel by German writer Mario Giordano.

Recently widowed, Poldi leaves her native Munich for Sicily where she has every intention of drinking herself comfortably to death in front of a sea view.

But fate intervenes when Poldi finds the body of her odd job man, Valentino, lying on the beach with his face blown away. She promises him there and then that she will find his killer and avenge his death and sets out to investigate, making some new friends, but also some enemies, along the way.

Sicily and the Sicilians provide a colourful backdrop for the novel and there is plenty of discussion about the island’s culinary specialities, such as who cooks the best pasta al nero di sepia and canoli alla crema di ricotta, and where to find the best oyster mushrooms and marzipan fruits.

Poldi also finds romance with the handsome Commissario Montana, with whom she forms an uneasy investigative partnership. She puts her own life in danger in order to find Valentino’s killer, spurred on by the extra incentive of wanting to solve the case before Montana.

Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions is the first crime novel by the novelist and screenplay writer Mario Giordano. Born in Munich in 1963, Giordano studied psychology at the University of Dusseldorf and now lives in Cologne. The very readable English translation of the novel is by John Brownjohn.

Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions was first published in the UK in 2016 by Bitter Lemon Press and is the first of a crime series featuring the same character.

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(Picture credit: Sicily photo by papshmouth via Pixabay)

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