Last seen in Nabb's Some Bitter Taste
(2002), Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia is an unusual protagonist for a crime novel: he's neither a Bond-like sophisticate nor a recovering loser; a Sicilian living in Florence, he's neither on his own turf nor in a strange land. A modest family man, a quiet and calm observer—but no macho silence, mind you—he makes his way in a town he's come to know. In lovely measured language, the author unfolds the story of a woman's body found in a pond in the Boboli Gardens. The victim is unrecognizable, so it's some time before Guarnaccia, calling on an intriguing assortment of artisans and others in his neighborhood, discovers that she's Akiko, a young Japanese apprentice to the shoemaker Peruzzi. Guarnaccia digs for answers, but when he finally identifies Akiko's mysterious lover, the chief suspect in her death, the marshal for once regrets knowing the truth. While this, the 13th Marshal Guarnaccia investigation, may be short on action (even admirers of Nabb's style may find an extended dream sequence a bit too long), it offers such pleasures as great local atmosphere and rich characterizations. Agent, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland)
. (Oct.)
