Customer Reviews

Death of An Englishman

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The re-release of Magdalene Nabb's Florentine stories is long overdue ( and shame on her UK publisher for dropping her ).

Congratulations are due to SoHo Press for their continuing ressucitation of some of the finest crime writers ( Van Der Wetterring , Tokagi and Janes etc )who all seem to have been dropped in favour of half-witted serial killer clones.

These are some of the finest crime stories ever written and their evocation of Florence is flawless.Marshal Guarnaccia is one of the most engaging protagonists since Maigret and the stories have a similar emphasis on the observation of character and cause rather than Chritie-esque puzzles.In many ways the mystery seems secondary to Ms. Nabb's exceptional ability to draw the reader into the lives of her characters and the bustle of Florentine daily life.

Buy three copies, one to read and re-read to destruction , one to keep for the time when your first falls to bits and one to give to your best friend.

Brava Signora !

I was going to read this book which looked nicely recomended but thanks to the kindly meant but unfortunately revealing review of Maiko Shimoi from Osaka, Japan I will not be reading this book.

Any one else who is planning to read the book please do not read Maiko's review...

The first in the Marshal Guarnaccia series makes a promising start. Set in Florence, the marshal wants nothing more than to head home to Sicily for the Christmas holidays but is laid low with the flu. Desperately trying to recover in order that he may return to his family for the holidays, he is called out to a murder site... an Englishman had been shot in the back, the murder weapon is missing and there are no apparent clues.

It turns out the man is from a well-connected family in England, and Scotland Yard dispatches 2 of its own to Florence to work with the local police in solving this mystery.

With an interesting cast of characters and possible suspects, we are led a merry chase, but it's the marshal's quiet observations that solve the case.

This series focuses on the texture of the neighborhood and the culture. These books are to savor, like a slow Italian meal. Plot? Also slow, but satisfying. Like good fruit for dessert, not tiramisu.

#1 Marshal Guarnaccia mystery, featuring this Carabinieri stationed in Florence, Italy. It's Christmas Eve, the Marshal has a terrible case of flu, and he's planning to head south to visit family for the holidays, but a murdered Englishman who had retired to live there in Italy takes precedence. A somewhat pudgy man with an eye condition that makes them water profusely in any sort of sunlight, the Marshal actually sleeps through much of the beginning stages of the investigation, so wracked with fever is he, and his subordinates do much of the evidence gathering.

The Englishman was apparently well-connected politically too, as Scotland Yard sends two detectives to observe and assist where needed, although they aren't officially there. Eventually though, the Marshal is well enough to put his two cents in and solves the case.

This was a slim little book, quickly read, although not really that engaging. It was interesting to see how things looked from the Carabinieri side of Italian police work vs. the regular police that I've read about in a couple of other mystery series, but I couldn't really get interested much in any of the characters in this book and found the mystery rather blah. It was an okay read, but not good enough for me to want to pursue further entries in the series, at least for now.

In slightly more than 200 pages Nabb manages to do more than some authors whose books are twice the length. She gives the reader a thoughtful tale of mysterious doings in Florence, Italy. This book tells more than a story of a murder; it tells the stories of the people who inhabit this novel, many of them living in an ancient building, keeping to themselves until one of the occupants is murdered. Some of the characters are oddballs, but they are all enchanting. The Marshal Guarnaccia of the title is a complex man with the heart of a philosopher and his acts of kindness make him the kind of man one wants to spend more time with in future books. An added bonus is the setting of Florence and a look into the politics of the Italian way of life. I look forward to reading more of this series. If you like these books by Magdalen Nabb, you may enjoy the ones by Andrea Camilleri that are set in Sicily.

DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN (Trad. Mystery/Pol. Proc-Marshal Guarnaccia-Italy-Cont) - G+
Nabb, Magdalen - 1st in series
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981, US Hardcover - ISBN: 0684177579

First Sentence: The small office was in darkness, except where the red night lamp stood by the telephone on the desk, and the white kid gloves lying on top of a sheaf of papers within the patch of light were flushed pink.

Marshal Guiarnaccia is a Carabiniere stationed in Florence. He wants to get home for Christmas with his family in Sicily but is laid low with a bad case of the flu so it's his young new police cadet, Carabiniere Bacci, faced with the investigation into the murder of a well-connected Englishman.

Inspectors from Scotland Yard appear on the scene and want to keep things quite. As he begins to recover, it is the subtle observations of Marshal that solve the case.

I was not familiar with this author, but it was recommended to me and I thought I'd give it a try. I'm so glad I did.

It's the first of the series and a bit misleading since the actual protagonist spends most of the story being sick. I didn't learn much about Marshal in this book, but when he did make an appearance, I became completely intrigued and wanted more.

I loved the Florentine setting. Nabb is a wonderfully visual writer. Unfortunately, now I've found another author whose backlist I need to seek out and read.

The device used to delay entry of the Marshal into the case is clever and unprecedented.

Having really enjoyed Camilleri's Montalbano books, I was hopeful about this, especially after seeing such good reviews. I was greatly disappointed. The mystery itself was all right, although the red herrings were rather expected, but it was the feel of the story which was the greatest disappointment. Rather than having an Italian, much less Florentine, flavor permeate the story, I felt as if the author visited for local color and presented details without substance. Marshall Guarnaccia was barely in the story much of the time, and I got no feel for his personality or quirks. It was the English characters who had the most life, and that wasn't what I was looking for.The Terra-Cotta Dog: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery