Tangled Web UK Review August 2008
Vita Nuova by
Magdalen Nabb
hbk out August 08
Published by Heinemann
at £14.99
This is one of the long series of Marshal Guarnaccia mysteries set in Florence - and sadly will be the last, as Magdalen Nabb died last year.
She was an English writer who had lived in that famous city for many years and has done for Florence what Donna Leon does for Venice, creating a very credible Italian detective operating in a country where official corruption is not unknown, to say the least.
Unlike the Venetian officer, the marshal is a member of the Caribiniere, a part of the army, in the complex structure of the Italian police, which has no less that eight different sections. He works out of a police station not far from the famous Ponte Vecchio and is a complex character, somewhat introspective and diffident, devoted to his wife, who in this book is in Sicily, nursing his sick sister, leaving him lonely and aimless.
The story concerns the shooting of a young mother in a grand house overlooking the city. Her father, Paoletti, turns out to be a suspect character who owns a night-club which is a front for a high-class house of ill-repute. The marshal co-operates with a journalist who uncovers this aspect, then Guarnaccia learns that the patrons of Paoletti’s brothel are high ranking socialities, including the very prosecutor, Fulvio de Vita, who is directing the murder investigation, which is the way in which continental cases are conducted. The marshal knows that if he persists in his delving, where illegal East European girls and even children are involved, he will be fired and he even goes so far as to send in his resignation and contemplates finding some other job.
The writing style is a little odd, in that the reader is sometimes left with little explanation, situations arising abruptly from nowhere and even in the dialogue, it is sometimes hard to work out who is speaking.
But it is a compelling read and it is sad to know that there will be no more tales about this unusual detective.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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