Wine and murder mix in front of a smoking volcano
Auntie Poldi
embarks on another murder investigation in this second book in the series, but
the only clue she has to go on is the picture on a wine label.
According to
her anonymous German nephew who narrates the story, Auntie Poldi knows a thing
or two about wine and has a nose for a good one. This particular bottle of
Sicilian wine was used as a murder weapon and so she also sniffs out a new case
to investigate.
She goes to
the vineyard where the wine was produced to see if she can find out anything
that might link it to the murder and, after enthusiastically taking up the
offer of sampling the vintage and having rather too much of it, she comes
across a dead body among the vines on her way home.
So, Auntie
Poldi is off on another adventure in sunny Sicily, where she has gone to see
out her days with the intention of drinking herself to death while enjoying a
sea view.
After being widowed,
the glamorous 60-years old left her native Munich to live in Torre Achirafi on
the east coast of Sicily. But her retirement plans were interrupted when she found
the body of her odd job man, Valentino, lying on the beach with his face blown
away.
She promised
him there and then that she would find his killer and avenge his death. The story
is related by her nephew, who frequently comes to stay with her, in the first
book in the series, Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions
During her
investigation, she finds romance with the handsome Chief Inspector Montana,
with whom she also forms an uneasy investigative partnership.
It is during
a cosy evening at her villa with Montana at the beginning of the second book that
Poldi sees his pictures from a crime scene taken after the brutal murder of a female
district attorney.
When Montana
admits he is not making much progress with finding the woman’s killer, Poldi decides to visit the vineyard where the
bottle of wine that was used to murder the lawyer was produced.
She cannot
resist competing against Montana to prove that her previous success wasn’t a
fluke and that she is a better detective than him.
She is
assisted in her investigation by her good friends, Padre Paolo, the parish
priest, and the owner of the local bar, the ‘sad’ Signora Cocuzza.
Also helping
her out with the case are her colourful Sicilian family by marriage, her three
sisters-in-law, and her brother in law and his dog, Totti.
Add lots of Sicilian food and Etna wine, fortune tellers who can give you the evil eye, plenty
of handsome men, even if Poldi suspects some of them as being mafiosi, and the beautiful
backdrop of a smoking volcano under a blue sky. As usual, Mario Giordano serves
it all up with style and humour.
