The Marshal’s Own Case

A Marshal Guarnaccia Investigation by Magdalen Nabb
 

Marshall Guarnaccia investigates grisly
goings-on after dark in Florence

Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia’s superior officer in the Carabinieri, Captain Maestrangelo, puts him in charge of a murder case after a chopped up body is found in plastic bags on his territory.

It takes the Marshal away from his familiar world in the Carabinieri station at the Pitti Palace and plunges him into the nocturnal world of the transgender prostitutes operating in Florence.

For despite having breasts, the body which has been neatly sawn into pieces and dispersed between a number of plastic bags, turns out to be that of a man not a woman.

Despite observing that the Marshal never has much to say for himself, the Captain rates his ability and knows that the Marshal doesn’t miss much, as evidenced by his previous successes.

But the Marshal has to learn quickly, in order to operate within a community he has no experience of, and which seems a long way from the daily difficulties of tourists and their lost property and passports that he is used to.

He is dismayed when the Captain hands him a pile of files relating to previous murders of prostitutes and their clients in Florence, all of which are marked Unsolved.

Magdalen Nabb set 14
crime novels in Florence

But the Captain does assign to him one of his own men, Ferrini, a friendly and talkative officer, who knows his way around in the shadowy world of transgender prostitution.

Guarnaccia quickly develops some sympathy for the tragic men, who have had surgery and been given hormone treatments to make them look like women, so that they can satisfy the desires of their regular clients, who are usually seemingly respectable men living in Florence.

When Peppina, one of the transgender prostitutes, is arrested and locked in a cell, suspected of the murder of what turns out to be Lulu, one of her rivals, Guarnaccia believes she is not guilty of the crime.

He is so sure of Peppina’s innocence, despite the evidence against her, he insists on continuing his inquiries, even though he is urged to drop the investigation because the Prosecutor has said he is satisfied with the result.

Against a backdrop of other problems, with one of his two young sons not doing well at school and getting into trouble, and his wife urging him to look for the missing son of an acquaintance from back home in Sicily, he keeps going out at night in terrible weather to try to solve the crime to his own satisfaction.

His patience and tenacity pays off and he catches the real killer, strives to get the most lenient sentence for Peppina for other charges she is facing, and can then finally turn his attention to his own, troubled young son.

This is another compelling mystery by Magdalen Nabb, which exposes a shadowy part of life going on at night in the beautiful, historic city of Florence. 

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The Marshal and the Murderer

A Marshal Guarnaccia Investigation by Magdalen Nabb 

The Marshall is asked to investigate the disappearance of a Swiss girl staying in Florence, who has been learning pottery-making in a nearby village.

And when her body is found outside a ceramics factory in the village, the local Marshal is keen for Guarnaccia to stay and help out with the murder investigation.

The two Carabinieri officers find it frustrating that no one in the village seems to want to help them find the killer. They are met with a wall of silence and are convinced they are not being told the whole truth about the girl’s movements on the day she was murdered.

The breakthrough comes when they speak to a retired doctor about the grim events that took place in the village during the German occupation in the early 1940s.

Marshall Guarnaccia finally begins to see a pattern emerge, but puts his own life at risk when he goes to confront the murderer.

Magdalen Nabb tells the compelling story well and shows the reader life in a part of Tuscany that tourists seldom visit, drawing on her own knowledge of the ceramics industry she herself had worked in.

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(Picture of Florence by Helena Volpi from Pixabay)

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Death in Autumn

A Marshal Guarnaccia investigation by Magdalen Nabb

Marshal Guarnaccia’s instincts come to be heavily relied upon by his Carabinieri captain during a difficult investigation into the murder of a lonely German woman living in Florence.

The woman’s body had been found floating in the River Arno clad only in a fur coat and jewellery.

The Marshal’s big, slightly protuding eyes notice everything and he soon works out who is lying to him when he makes his enquiries at the hotel in he city where she had been living for the last 15 years and at the villa she owned in Greve in Chianti.

He is intrigued to find out she had become friends with the night porter at the hotel and he is also suspicious of the young people who are renting the villa from her.

The Captain is glad to follow the Marshal’s intuition in this complex case. He and his men are already stretched by an operation to track down the dealers at the centre of the drugs trade in the city that has recently led to the deaths of two young people and he is feeling pressurised by the Substitute Prosecutor to get a quick result in the murder case.

Magdalen Nabb brings the streets and squares of Florence alive in this clever, well-written mystery, which keeps the reader guessing till the end.

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Death in Springtime

A Marshal Guarnaccia mystery by Magdalen Nabb

 

Magdalen Nabb's story begins in late winter in
Marshal Guarnaccia's home city of Florence

When a wealthy American student is kidnapped in Florence with one of her college friends, the Carabinieri move swiftly to try to find her before she comes to any harm.

English-speaking Lieutenant Bacci tries to win the confidence of the girl’s friend after she is released by the kidnappers and found wandering in the countryside.

And Captain Maestrangelo and a new Substitute Prosecutor organise a massive operation to search the part of the Tuscan hills where the confused girl was discovered.

But it is Marshal Guarnaccia’s enquiries on his own patch near Palazzo Pitti, the area of the city where the American girl had been staying, that yield the clues that eventually lead to the kidnappers.

Magdalen Nabb tells the story cleverly, paving the way towards an outcome that is completely unexpected.

The story begins on the first of March with snow falling in Florence, which provides a big distraction for the local people at the time the young women are kidnapped.

And Death in Springtime ends with such a surprise that it will give the reader something to think about long after they have finished the last page.

(Image by Mark Gilder from Pixabay)

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Death of a Dutchman

A Marshal Guarnaccia mystery

In the heat of the summer in Florence, the Marshal embarks on a single-handed mission to bring a person to justice for murder.

He had been called out to investigate after an old lady heard suspicious noises coming from a neighbouring apartment and after gaining entrance he had discovered a dying man.

The victim was a young Dutch jeweller who occasionally used the apartment when he visited Florence on business. Although the officers called in to investigate the death come to the conclusion that he has committed suicide, the Marshal has misgivings.

He makes a few unofficial enquiries of his own and eventually has a suspect in his sights. Unable to intervene officially, and conscious that the murderer will get away with it if he doesn’t do anything, the Marshal embarks on an exhausting pursuit of his quarry throughout the city, hoping to uncover the proof that he needs.

It is an intriguing and absorbing story revealing Magdalen Nabb’s detailed knowledge of Florence. It should come as no surprise that the novelist Georges Simenon referred to Death of a Dutchman as ‘a masterpiece’. 

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(Florence picture by Makalu from Pixabay)

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Death of an Englishman

The first Marshal Guarnaccia novel by Magdalen Nabb

Florence in the run up to Christmas is skilfully presented to us by Magdalen Nabb as the setting for this novel. 

She doesn't just portray the famous city crammed full of art treasures that is so popular with  tourists, but instead gives an insider's view of what it is like to live in an apartment in one of the big old palaces, either as an ex-pat Brit or a working Italian.

She lets us see the city from an interesting variety of viewpoints. There is the Carabinieri officer, Marshal Guarnaccia, a Sicilian who is homesick for his island and misses his wife and family. We also see Florence through the eyes of two English detectives who have arrived to work alongside the Carabinieri on the investigation and we get an insight into the thoughts of the new recruit, the Florentine officer, Carabiniere Bacci.

The novel starts with the discovery of the body of an elderly Englishman in his ground floor apartment. Despite the circumstances in which he seems to have been living, he turns out to be well-connected and from an upper class background.

The Marshal is ill in bed with the flu and his junior officer, Bacci, has to work under his direction while also acting as an interpreter for the Carabinieri captain with the English detectives.  But it is the Sicilian marshal who shows the deepest understanding of the personalities involved and uncovers the shocking truth.

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(Image by djedj from Pixabay)     

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