The Dogs of Rome: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel

Fitzgerald’s impressively plotted debut, the first in a projected contemporary crime series, introduces police chief commissioner Alec Blume, an American expatriate who’s been living in Rome for the last 22 years. Since losing both his parents—art historians who were shot and killed during a bank robbery on Via Cristoforo Colombo—as a teenager, Blume has been a loner of sorts, the proverbial outsider. When someone brutally murders Arturo Clemente, a prominent politician’s husband and an animal rights activist who recently exposed a dog-fighting ring, in Clemente’s apartment, the flawed but endearing Blume uses his unique perspective to negotiate his way through a labyrinthine minefield that includes crooked cops, unscrupulous politicians, and an ancient city whose very history is steeped in the corruption associated with organized crime. Those who like gritty crime thrillers with a European flair will be well rewarded. (Mar.)