Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Archive for February, 2013

The late Magdalen Nabb wrote thirteen mystery novels, and I confess I had not read any of them until this week.  I’d seen her books in my local library and various bookstores, but somehow I never got around to reading one.

Because Ms. Nabb’s books take place in Florence, Italy and I’ll be visiting that beautiful city this spring, I decided it was time to read one of her books, so I picked up Death of an Englishman, the first in her series featuring Marshal Guarnaccia.  I’m sorry and glad–sorry that it took me so long to discover Ms. Nabb’s writing and glad that I finally did.

It’s a few days before Christmas, and people whose homes are in other cities are leaving Florence to go to their families for the holiday.  Everyone except Marshal Guarnaccia, who’s confined to his bed in the police station with influenza instead of being able to head home to Syracuse.  Manning the station’s night shift is Carabiniere Bacci, a recruit with only two months on the job.

The phone jars Bacci awake, and a garbled voice asks for the marshal to report that an Englishman living a few streets away…well, what about him?  The caller can’t bring himself to tell anyone but Guarnaccia, but Guarnaccia is asleep with a fever, so Bacci leaves the station to investigate.

A few minutes later the phone wakes the marshal.  It’s Bacci, reporting that there’s been a murder at number fifty eight Via Maggio, so the marshal forces himself out of bed and walks unsteadily to the address.

It’s Gianpaolo Cippola, the building’s custodian, who has called about the Englishman.  Cippola’s wife had died the night before, and he’s a man in shock dealing with two deaths in two days.  The murder brings two Scotland Yard officers to Florence later that day; it turns out that the Englishman, a Mr. A. Langley-Smythe, is a member of a well-connected British family, and that family wants to make certain that “no unnecessary distress” is caused by the Italian authorities.

The city of Florence is brought to life through Ms. Nabb’s evocative descriptions.  Every sentence has meaning in this short novel; nothing is extraneous.  Even the Italians’ discovery that the Englishman had been living on the ground floor, a cause for much astonishment, means something.

The characters in Death of an Englishman are beautifully drawn.  Marshal Guarnaccia, sick with the flu and afraid that he won’t be able to get home for Christmas; the inexperienced Carabiniere Bacci, fluent enough in English to act as translator for the two Yard detectives but very much aware of his own lack of knowledge of police procedures; the voluble and eccentric elderly English woman, Miss White, who lives in the same building as the deceased and has made her apartment a shrine for the poet Walter Savage Landor; the frightened Cipolla, who wanted to report the death only to the marshal; all of them are real and believable.

Magdalen Nabb died at the age of sixty in 2007, but her admirers have continued to update her web site.  You can read more about her at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Reads blog at this web site.

I’ve never been fly fishing, or any other type of fishing to be honest.  But after reading The Royal Wulff Murders, I might just try it.

The book opens on the beautiful Madison River, a body of water that is reputed to have the best trout fishing in Montana.  Rainbow Sam, a grizzly river fishing guide, is there with a client when the client’s line hooks not a coveted rainbow trout but a bloated corpse. 

Sheriff Martha Ettinger is trying to put a name to the body; at first the death appears to have been a tragic accident.   Then the autopsy results show that the victim’s lungs had algae and certain microscopic bugs that are found only in lakes, not rivers.  There’s no good explanation for that finding other than murder.

Sean Stranahan is a newcomer to Bridger, Montana.  He left Boston, his ex-wife, and a minor career as a private investigator in an attempt to find a new, more satisfying life.   Sean’s dream is to support himself as an painter, but since the artistic life isn’t always the most economically feasible, he put “Private Investigations” in small letters on his office door as well as the more hopeful “Blue Ribbon Watercolors” in larger letters.

But, as luck would have it, the small lettering brought in a client, his first.  Sean had seen Vareda Lafayette when she was performing at a local club and was very much attracted by her striking looks and her way with the American songbook.  Perhaps that was what made Sean agree to her very unusual request–to find a specific spot on the Madison where her father fished the day before he died and then to cast his ashes there.  Vareda tells Sean that he’ll know the spot because her father always marked the trout he caught in a certain way before returning them to the water.  Sean is doubtful about the possibility of his finding the right spot and catching a fish so marked, but he agrees to try.

Oh, yes, Vareda tells him, as she prepares to leave his office.  There’s one more thing.  If you see my brother on the river, tell him I said hello and ask him to call me.

Crucial to the novel’s plot is the fact that the rivers of Montana are threatened by the whirling disease, which originated in Germany.  In America, trout are vulnerable and dying in large numbers.  The disease causes malformations in the trout’s skeleton as well as neurological damage and makes the fish whirl instead of swim in a normal way, making it easier for larger fish to catch them.  When Vareda tells Sean that her missing brother last worked in a fish hatchery where he thought something suspicious was going on, Sean begins to connect the dots.

Keith McCafferty is an award-winning journalist, and The Royal Wulff Murders is the first in a series featuring Sean Stranahan.  The author’s love of Montana, its rivers, and fly fishing is evident throughout the novel.  As the Survival and Outdoor Skills editor of Field and Stream, he is a man with a great deal of knowledge about the outdoors and how to live in it, enjoy it, and preserve it for future generations.

You can read more about Keith McCafferty at his web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Reads blog at this web site.

My favorite mystery book store, Mainely Murders in Kennebunk, Maine, puts out a terrific monthly newsletter.  One of the books Paula and Ann highlighted for February sounded fascinating, so I ordered it.  The book’s subtitle, The World’s Greatest Mystery Writers on the World’s Greatest Mystery Novels, says it all.

The book begins with The Dupin Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1841) and ends with The Perk by Mark Gimenez (2008).  There are names familiar to all mystery lovers:  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dame Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith; and names not so well known or totally unknown (to me, at least):  Robert Wilson, Peter Temple, Perihan Magden.  There are books from England, France, Italy, South Africa, Switzerland, and of course the United States.

What makes this anthology so interesting to me is that rather than the novels being the choices of only the two editors, Connolly and Burke went to 119 contemporary mystery authors, asking each to choose a mystery that had had a great influence on him or her.  Those writers chose books ranging from the expected (Linda Barnes wrote about The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle) to the unexpected (Liza Marklund wrote about The Ghost of Blackwood Hall by Carolyn Keene).

Also interesting to me are which books were chosen and which were not.  I’m a huge Agatha Christie fan, but the two books picked for this anthology, Murder on the Orient Express and Endless Night, would never have made my list; I much prefer The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None/aka Ten Little Indians.  In addition, Raymond Chandler leaves me cold, yet his Farewell, My Lovely and The Little Sister are on the list.

I can’t decide what is the best part of Books to Die For; whether it reminds me of books I’d read but really would like to re-read (The Steam Pig by James McClure) or books I’d never heard of but sound terrific (The Long-Legged Fly by James Sallis).  Either way, thanks to Paula and Ann for alerting me to Books to Die For.  Check out their website (http://www.mainelymurders.com) for everything you want to know about mysteries and sign up for their free monthly newsletter.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Reads blog at this web site.

February 2, 2013

This About Marilyn column starts the fourth year of my blog.  I’ve written over 180 posts, including About Marilyn columns, Authors‘ biographies, and columns for Past Masters and Mistresses, Golden Oldies, and of course Book Reviews.  It’s been a delight to write these weekly posts, and I look forward to continuing to write in 2013.

Up until now I haven’t reviewed more than one book by the same author.  One of the reasons I chose to feature a different author with each post is to force myself to search out new authors rather than returning to reliable favorites as soon as they published new mysteries.  But, of course, this meant that I didn’t review excellent novels by authors I’d previously written about.  So this year I’m going to blog about whatever books I feel are worth reading, whether or not I’ve written about the authors before.

Please feel free to send me your thoughts about your favorite books at the Reader’s Recommendations section of the blog.

Marilyn

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Reads blog at this web site.