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Magdalen Nabb’s protagonist Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia, a Sicilian, is based in Florence in charge of one of the city’s small police outposts. He feels he has neither the rank not the intellect to be solving murder cases, although in Nabb’s novels he is always solving the murders that inevitably occur. There are now at least 12 of these novels, DEATH OF A DUTCHMAN, being the second in the series now being republished. In the present novel, the marshal is trying to placate an elderly woman who is always phoning the police about some unusual occurrence where she lives. In this case as a result he discovers a murdered Dutch jeweler, who lived in the same building as the elderly woman. The officer in charge of the case is young and inexperienced, and he relies considerably on Guarnaccia to pursue the investigation. The matter grows in importance (and complexity) as the marshal discovers information about the various individuals involved in the recent or past life of the jeweler, including among others the Dutchman’s now widowed wife, his second wife, his stepmother and her sister, and a fellow jeweler to whom the Dutchman had turned over his business. There is also a poignant note of sadness when two Italian intelligent officers become involved on the case’s periphery and are responsible for a horrendous mistake. DEATH OF A DUTCHMAN moves at an interesting pace from what seems to be a rather insignificant non-crime to a major case of intriguing tangents. As in the other Marshal Guarnaccia stories, the action takes place in a fascinating city and leads us through the city’s districts, streets, and buildings with the kind of detail that could almost serve as a travel guide. I find it helpful to accompany my reading of the story with a city guide book of Florence. Although I made notes as I read the novel, I might have profited more – and thus offer this advice to future readers – if I had written down in more detail the relationship between characters. As an English-language writer of mysteries set in modern Italy, Nabb takes her place among similar excellent novelists, such as Donna Leon and Iain Pears.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, December 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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