Some Bitter Taste

Rating:
Summary: solid Italian police procedural
Review: Once he handles a couple of other more pressing police matters, Florence Marshall Salvatore Guarnaccia will deal with Signora Sara Hirsch's complaint that someone had entered her apartment. So he goes ahead and deals with an illegal abused, underage Albanian prostitute and a minor robbery at the Villa L'Uliveto. When he arrives at Sara's abode, he regrets his assumption that the breaking and entering was a minor matter for he finds her dead.

Feeling guilty, he makes inquiries into the deceased. He learns she was impoverished, but expects to make fortune when a Monet that the Nazis stole from her family was soon to be returned to her. Allegedly a half-brother possesses the art treasure. However, before he can track down the missing masterpiece, Guarnaccia learns that someone also killed Sir Christopher, whose villa robbery made Salvatore arrive too late to help Sara. As he keeps digging, he finds a link between the two deaths, but so far unable to determine who wanted both dead.

The Guarnaccia police procedurals are some of the sub-genre's best. Readers get a taste of Italian law enforcement through the methodical Guarnaccia, a tremendous lead protagonist. SOME BTTER TASTE is a strong entry as the cleverly deigned who-done-it is more personnel than usual for the quiet hero. Anyone who reads this novel or any of Magdalen Nabb's works will go away with a sweet taste desiring more novels by a superb mystery author.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Visiting Florence in vain
Review: This book just ambles on and on, and on. The mareciallo talks to a number of people.The capitano talks to another number of people. Nothing nasty is really happening, and nothing connects up. Add a measure of holocaust to make it sinister. Only in the very end do the explanations come. They don’t make too much sense, and certainly could not have been predicted.

This is the first book I read by this author. I believe that I will not touch another one in a long time. It does not even have the redeeming quality of well delineated characters.