The Gondola Scam

A Lovejoy narrative by Jonathan Gash

Antiques dealer Lovejoy travels to Venice in this novel in a bid to find out who committed a robbery that resulted in the deaths of two of his colleagues.

Renowned as a divvie, someone with unerring instincts who can tell the difference between a fake and a genuine antique, Lovejoy has been asked to work for a rich man trying to bring some of the priceless works of art out of the city.

But preferring to pursue his own lines of enquiry he travels independently to La Serenissima, the most serene republic, and attaches himself to a tour group.

He meets, and is distracted by, a succession of attractive women and he enjoys playing the tourist, appreciating the beauty that is everywhere in Venice.

He ends up being employed as a forger so that he can find out more about the criminal activities of the ruthless people involved in the scam, putting himself in danger.

It is a very readable book with a mystery at its heart that keeps you turning the pages.

Jonathan Gash also reveals a deep knowledge of and love for Venice, which he describes very well.

The Gondola Scam is a good book for anyone interested in works of art and Venice, written with humour, featuring believable characters, and set in the world of antiques dealing.

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Inspector Cataldo’s Criminal Summer

By Luigi Guicciardi 

The apparent suicide of an academic brings Inspector Cataldo to a quiet holiday town in the Apennines during a particularly hot summer.

Suspecting murder, he questions the dead man’s wife and friends and discovers a common link between them all with a graduation dinner held in the past. And he finds that a mysterious stranger has arrived in the town and has shaken up the delicate social balance of a group of people who have a lot to hide. 

Soon there is another death and the Inspector becomes desperate to uncover the motive behind the killings to prevent the murderer striking again. Suffering in the hot conditions, Inspector Cataldo becomes nostalgic for his native Sicily and remembers a past love and romantic disappointment while he strives to solve the case.

Translated from the Italian by Iain Halliday, this novel was originally published in Italy as La Calda Estate del Commissario Cataldo. 

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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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The Assisi Murders

An Achille Peroni mystery by Timothy Holme

Commissario Achille Peroni is tempted by plenty of beautiful women while on a pilgrimage to Assisi but he finds himself irresistibly drawn to a lady who had lived in the city during the 13th century.

When one of his fellow pilgrims is arrested on a charge of shooting her lover, Peroni takes it upon himself to conduct an investigation completely independent of the police officers assigned to the case from Perugia.

But his enquiries uncover a 13th century mystery involving a woman who had been a confidante of St Francis of Assisi himself.

Timothy Holme skilfully blends Peroni’s investigations into the present day murder with his fascinating journey into the past intrigues of medieval Assisi, which are revealed in the letters the Commissario discovers written by St Francis’s close female friend, the fascinating Jacopa de Settesoli.

He is ably assisted in the investigation by an eccentric English woman crime writer living in Assisi, Dame Iolanthe Higgins, a well-drawn character who adds humour and colour to the story.

As ever, Timothy Holme serves up an intriguing mystery that is also amusing and entertaining for his readers.

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Cabal

An Aurelio Zen mystery by Michael Dibdin

Michael Dibdin’s third Zen novel is set in Rome and begins with the death of a man inside the Basilica of Saint Peter during Mass.

A body plummets to the ground from high up in the great dome of the church and ends up on the marble floor in front of all of the worshippers.

Zen is asked to investigate the circumstances by the Vatican to ensure they are seen to be open and fair and are not just accepting the convenient theory that the man was committing suicide.

But getting the answers he needs isn’t easy after one witness after another is silenced before he can talk to them by violent death.

Knowing himself to be under threat, Zen has to penetrate a sinister, secret organisation known as the Cabal in order to save his own skin and put an end to the killings.

Dibdin starts the book in Rome and then Zen travels by train to Milan and you can tell you are in a different city when he gets off the train, that’s how good his settings are.

He puts in details about contemporary life in Rome in that period, including the disruption caused by extending the metro, that make the reader feel they are living through it with Zen.

Towards the end of the book a lot of the action takes place in the Galleria in Milan and his sharp observations about the architecture, shops and restaurants makes you feel you are living in that period in the city.

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Death in the High City first anniversary

 

Successful year for Bergamo’s first English crime novel

 

Death in the High City, the first British detective novel to be set in Bergamo, has had an exciting first year.

The novel, which was published in Kindle format on Amazon 12 months ago today, has sold copies in the UK, Italy, America, Australia and Canada . A paperback version of Death in the High City was published in July 2014.

The novel in Piazza Vecchia

Author Val Culley has had some heart warming emails and messages about the book from readers both in the UK and abroad and has been delighted with the level of interest in her first novel.

In October 2014 Val was a guest at the fifth anniversary celebrations of Bergamo Su e Giù a group of independent tour guides in the city. She was invited to present Death in the High City to an audience in San Pellegrino Terme and sign copies of the book and she also made an appearance on Bergamo TV to talk about the novel with presenter Teo Mangione.

In November the book was purchased by Leicestershire Libraries and is now in stock at Loughborough, Shepshed, Ashby de la Zouch, Coalville, Castle Donington and Kegworth Libraries and is going out on loan regularly. In April this year Val was invited to Bergamo again to present her novel to a group of 80 Italian teachers of English and to sign copies. She made a second appearance on Bergamo TV and also formally presented a copy of Death in the High City to the Biblioteca Civica (Civic Library) in Piazza Vecchia, a location that is featured in the novel itself.

Death in the High City centres on the investigation into the death of an English woman who was staying in the Città Alta while writing a biography of the composer Gaetano Donizetti.

The novel is the first of a series to feature the characters of Kate Butler, a freelance journalist, and Steve Bartorelli, a Detective Chief Inspector, who is of partly Italian descent and has just retired from the English police.

Val signing copies of her book in Bergamo

The victim had been living in an apartment in Bergamo’s Città Alta and much of the action takes place within the walls of the upper town. The local police do not believe there is enough evidence to open a murder enquiry and so Kate Butler, who is the victim’s cousin, arrives in Bergamo to try to get some answers about her 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 death in the Città Alta, her lover, Steve Bartorelli, joins her to help unravel the mystery and trap the killer. The reader is able to go along for the ride and enjoy Bergamo ’s wonderful architecture and scenery while savouring the many descriptions in the novel of local food and wine.

The novel will be of interest to anyone who enjoys the ‘cosy’ crime fiction genre or likes detective novels with an Italian setting.

Death in the High City by Val Culley is available from

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A Venetian Reckoning

A Commissario Brunetti novel by Donna Leon

In A Venetian Reckoning we discover that
Brunetti lives near the church of San Polo

Brunetti starts to investigate the murder of a prominent international lawyer on a train and soon finds himself uncovering a frightening network of corruption in Venice and further afield.

His enquiries into the secret lives of some of the top people in his home city lead to repercussions for both himself and his family, but he refuses to allow himself to be deterred from uncovering the truth.

We learn more about his domestic life in this fourth novel of the series and discover that his apartment is in Calle Tiepolo near the church of San Polo. At one point he sends his daughter, Chiara, out to buy some of his favourite Dolcetto wine from a nearby restaurant, Do Mori, demonstrating Donna Leon’s attention to detail, which helps to bring her characters and the city of Venice to life for the reader.

Brunetti discovers that a seedy bar is at the hub of an evil crime network involving the exploitation of women, from which rich, seemingly respectable people, are profiting.

But as ever there is a twist in the story leading to a poignant end to the book.

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