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Death in Springtime (Marshal Guarnaccia Mystery, #3)

Magdalen Nabb

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Jul 05, 2021 Julie Griffin added it

This is a quick read and it's perfect for those who like plot-driven procedurals that focus on the events at hand and do not diverge into the private lives of the detectives on the case. None of these officers have drinking problems or ex-wives or unsavory past histories. In fact, other than a select few, they are known simply as The Brigadier, The Substitute, and so on.
As well follow along with the Marshal on his way to work, we pause at a piazza to observe a late snowfall that strikes everyon This is a quick read and it's perfect for those who like plot-driven procedurals that focus on the events at hand and do not diverge into the private lives of the detectives on the case. None of these officers have drinking problems or ex-wives or unsavory past histories. In fact, other than a select few, they are known simply as The Brigadier, The Substitute, and so on.
As well follow along with the Marshal on his way to work, we pause at a piazza to observe a late snowfall that strikes everyone as out of the ordinary. It's March, near Palm Sunday and then Easter. People are shivering in the unexpected cold, hurrying to drop their children off with the nuns at nursery and pick up their market goods, and the marshal to get to work. A few miles north of Florence, a car screeches to a stop on a country road and ejects a young woman, who staggers toward lights and collapses in a town square at a florist shop. She's been released but her friend has been kept as a kidnap victim. This book was written in the 1980s, when kidnappings were common in Italy. Is it a professional jobs, or more worrying, is it one of the newer residents from Sardinia who keeps sheep in the mountains, make expensive cheese, and have been known to engage in a criminal activity here and there? What will ensure the safety of the captive, a wealthy American studying Italian in Florence, and also bring about the capture of the kidnappers? Not all of everyone's stories are the whole truth, and the search takes the reader to the shepherd culture on the mountains outside of Florence. The ending is a bit of a surprise twist that is appropriate both in hope and suffering for the Easter time ending.
This is the third of a series written by Magdalen Nabb and following a police officer in Florence. Nabb was a British author who passed away in 2007, and her books (twelve in all) were praised by fellow mystery writers such as Georges Simenon at the time. Recommend for those who would enjoy a quick-paced, lean procedural that gives a taste of northern Italian culture and history. ...more

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Oct 10, 2008 Pam marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jan 22, 2019 Pam added it

Shelves: crime-fiction, italy

Sep 18, 2019 Tammy Grimm marked it as to-read

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