Hilarious road trip highlights the beauty of Sicily for readers
The irrepressible
Auntie Poldi takes her German nephew on a chaotic tour of Sicily, the island
she has made her home while carrying out her plan of ‘drinking herself to death
with a sea view’, in this third novel in the series.
She is
looking for ‘someone’ she hopes will be able to lead her to the mysterious
‘something’ that she has been instructed to find, if she wants to prevent members
of her family from being killed.
Despite the gravity
of the task, her trip leads her into a series of romantic liaisons and a
mixture of hair-raising and hilarious misadventures. It also showcases some of
the beauty and magic of the island of Sicily for the reader to enjoy.
All the
nephew gets out of it are long uncomfortable hours of driving a Maserati - which
he knows was stolen by Poldi from someone she suspects of being in the Mafia –
along with the occasional threat to his life.
They are
guided on their journey by Uncle Martino, brought along by Poldi as a ‘sat
nav’, who is sitting in the back of the car with his constantly farting dog,
Totti.
The
anonymous German nephew’s sixty-something Bavarian Aunt, Poldi, had been
happily enjoying her retirement in the sunshine, with free-flowing Sicilian
wine and romantic liaisons with her lover, Chief Inspector Vito Montano.
Then her
peace had been interrupted by the last person she had expected to turn up on
her doorstep, one of her former husbands.
The unwanted
caller had been John Owenya, a detective with the Tanzanian Ministry of Home
Affairs, who needed help finding his half-brother, who had gone missing in
Sicily.
Along with
his brother had been the sum of ten million dollars that crime gangs both in
Sicily and Tanzania apparently had an interest in finding.
The
glamorous Poldi feels she has to help her ex-husband, John to find his brother.
She wants to save his brother’s life if possible, and also to have the chance
of getting back the proceeds from the sale of her house in Tanzania that she felt
her ex-husband had cheated her out of when they parted.
Soon after her
nephew from Germany arrives to stay with her for a holiday in Torre Achirafi, she
sweeps him off on a madcap hunt to find someone known as ‘Handsome Antonio’.
As usual
there is plenty of Sicilian food and wine to savour, no shortage of handsome
men interested in Poldi, and the
beautiful backdrop of Sicily under a blue sky to enjoy in this novel, all of
which Mario Giordano serves up for the reader with a large dose of humour.
Buy Auntie
Poldi and the Handsome Antonio.
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