Customer Reviews

Marshal at the Villa Torrini (Marshal Guarnaccia Investigation)

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Very much in the spirit of Simenon's Maigret series, Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia mysteries are equal parts procedural insight, portrait of society, and character study. Nabb captures the spirit of real police work, especially when complicated by the politics and bureaucracy that dominate present-day Italy. She also presents Florence in all its beauty and tawdriness, as seen through the eyes of her southern-born hero. The Marshal is a marvellous creation, an eternal outsider who thinks himself to be slow and is regularly underestimated by colleagues and criminals alike. Nabb's books are too often underestimated as well--by the likes of people who cannot spell either aficionado or eccentric--which is a shame. While Michael Dibdin's fine books centering on the adventures of Aurelio Zen are more sensational, Nabb's Guarnaccia novels have every bit as much heart and shrewd observation. I recommend them all and devoutly wish that *The Monster of Florence* would finally be published in the U. S.

This mystery has it all: awkward writing, a simplistic plot with no twists or turns, a plodding protagonist who never redeems himself, and snippets of a totally unnecessary and unexplained second mini-police/judicial case crowding its way throughout the main story.

This book may be the ideal reading material for excentric elderly English spinsters who speak to their dead Pomeranians or Pekinese and don't wish to have their pulses quickened.

I actually read every last word -- even to the final page -- to ensure that there was not some exceedingly clever turn of events that would make the pedestrian writing and jumble of disjointed events come together brilliantly. Nothing to fear: the author did not pull a Columbo.

If you have the choice, watch water dehydrate. It will prove to be more satisfying by several orders of magnitude.