Some Bitter Taste

I recommend that readers with the same goals as lvkleydorff (see review below) follow his advice and avoid the literate, beautifully written complexities of Ms. Nabb's Marshall in her all too brief series. Our hero plods, rather than walks, understands rather than articulates, and is convinced that he is barely useful to his superiors. He is actually does the detecting, while others are managing the procedural pieces. The plots are well constructed and unfold in a series of gifts to the reader. The Marshall understands the morality that guides the characters, and suggests that character is more of a guide to action than shallower motives. In the Marshall's efforts to understand what he sees, the reader is drawn into the same comtemplations that this middle aged, overweight sensitive and kind man without exposition by the author or exploratory peeks into the Marshall's thoughts. That's writing that is magic. In Some Bitter Taste, each of the victims would have been far happier and avoided their fate had they not lived by the rules laid for them in childhood. The unmentioned lesson seems to be that the current presence of the long past is inescapable, which seems a fact in real life for Florence (the setting) or any country with a long and remembered history. The Marshal, with his solid presence and blinded by the sun (light makes his eyes water), takes in the shadows to discover the true crimes. The atmosphere, point of view and necessary time to have the reader join the world Nabb develops so well is not for readers of thrillers and people who want only a plot to unravel. If you love true mystery, really good books and lovely writing, as well as utterly unconventional heroes, read these books.

The question of how responsible we are for the fates of others occupies the center of this Marshall Guarnaccia tale, set in Florence. When Sara Hirsch comes to the marshall in a state of terrible fear and anxiety because someone has been entering her apartment in her absence, he promises to come to see her. He is prevented from doing so as promptly as he would have liked; the scene in which he finally approaches her building is a masterly rendering of the experience of precognition. Needless to say, he finds her dead. His search for the reason for her death is gradually woven into the resolution of other situations in his territory, including a theft at the palatial home of a wealthy English art collector and the fate of a beautiful, young, and pregnant Albanian prostitute. The Marshal is a very humane man, and very good at his job. It is a pleasure to spend time with him.

Once he handles a couple of other more pressing police matters, Florence Marshall Salvatore Guarnaccia will deal with Signora Sara Hirsch's complaint that someone had entered her apartment. So he goes ahead and deals with an illegal abused, underage Albanian prostitute and a minor robbery at the Villa L'Uliveto. When he arrives at Sara's abode, he regrets his assumption that the breaking and entering was a minor matter for he finds her dead.Feeling guilty, he makes inquiries into the deceased. He learns she was impoverished, but expects to make fortune when a Monet that the Nazis stole from her family was soon to be returned to her. Allegedly a half-brother possesses the art treasure. However, before he can track down the missing masterpiece, Guarnaccia learns that someone also killed Sir Christopher, whose villa robbery made Salvatore arrive too late to help Sara. As he keeps digging, he finds a link between the two deaths, but so far unable to determine who wanted both dead.The Guarnaccia police procedurals are some of the sub-genre's best. Readers get a taste of Italian law enforcement through the methodical Guarnaccia, a tremendous lead protagonist. SOME BTTER TASTE is a strong entry as the cleverly deigned who-done-it is more personnel than usual for the quiet hero. Anyone who reads this novel or any of Magdalen Nabb's works will go away with a sweet taste desiring more novels by a superb mystery author.Harriet Klausner