Read Your Way Around the World – Mysterious Italy

Read Your Way Around the World invites you to mysterious Italy.  Relax with a little murder and mayhem on the Mediterranean Sea.

Dying on the Vine (M) 
by Aaron Elkins

A couple’s death has been ruled a murder-suicide by the police in Tuscany.

Gideon Oliver is known as the skeleton detective. He examines the remains of the couple and concludes that this was a double murder. The couple was the head of a wine-making family whose members had many motives for murder.

Death in Sardinia (M) 
by Marco Vichi

A loan shark is found murdered with a pair of scissors in his throat in Florence in 1965. The victim was himself not a very nice person, preying on the people who came to him for help and Inspector Bordelli finds himself conflicted as he investigates.

Death in the Floating City (M)
by Tasha Alexander

Lady Emily assists a childhood nemesis who has been wrongly accused of murder in Venice. The story is wrapped up in a 400 year old famous feud which Lady Emily must solve while traveling in gondolas and visiting libraries and bordellos in Victorian-era Venice.

Death’s Door  (M)
by James R. Benn

Lieutenant Billy Boyle’s girlfriend goes missing while working undercover in the Vatican. An American monsignor is found murdered and Billy insists on being assigned to investigate so that he can help his girlfriend. Set in 1944 Boyle must get through German lines to reach the Vatican only to find it peopled by escaped pow’s and refugees.

The Jewels of Paradise (M) 
by Donna Leon

A doctorate in Baroque opera can kind of limit your job prospects, so when Caterina Pellegrini is offered a job in her native Venice, she jumps at the chance and returns home. Her job is to research the contents of trunks belonging to a famous baroque composer so that his descendants can divide up his estate.

The Namesake (M) 
by Conor Fitzgerald

Commissario Blume goes undercover in the Mafia when they send warnings to the government to keep out of the way of organized crime. Blume investigates the murder of a Milanese insurance agent who is unfortunate enough to bear the same name as a government official.

A Pimp’s Note (M)
by Georgio Faletti

Bravo, a nameless man who wishes to cloak himself in secrecy, was castrated in an attack as a young man and then deemed himself fit for life as a pimp. He organizes encounters between wealthy and powerful men to beautiful prostitutes. A multiple murder at a rich client’s villa lead the police to Bravo, with involvement from the Mafia and a terrorist group. Gritty and intense noir fiction.

The Lost Daughter (M)
by Lucretia Grindle

A young American student goes missing in 1970s Florence and this does not alarm local authorities until they learn that she had been spending time with an infamous member of a militant organization. The investigator Enzo Saenz, in the course of his work, finds himself enamoured of a woman, Anna, who may prove untrustworthy.