Italian Crime Fiction

Tuscany. Winter, 1540. Travelling north into the hills above Florence, investigator Cesare Aldo seeks answers about his past.

The trail leads him to Ospedale de' Pazzi, a secure institution for the criminally insane. Soon after arriving a blizzard engulfs the area, trapping Aldo and his companion, Doctor Saul Orvieto. Even more alarming, their cart driver is found dead.

It looks like he fell over a nearby cliff in the whiteout – but Aldo suspects foul play. When a brutal slaying occurs in the central courtyard, it becomes clear a killer lurks among them. With the snowstorm sealing everyone in and a murderer hunting fresh victims, Aldo’s search for the truth proves deadlier than he could ever have imagined.

Mourning the loss of his late wife, Rita, former NYPD detective Nico Doyle moves to her home town of Gravigna in the wine region of Chianti. He isn't sure if it's peace he's seeking, but that certainly isn't what he finds: early one morning he hears a gunshot and discovers a man with his face blown off near his new home. Salvatore Perillo, the local police inspector, enlists Nico's help with the murder case.

It turns out more than one person in this idyllic corner of Italy knew the victim, and with a very small pool of suspects, including members of Rita's family, Nico must dig up Gravigna's every last painful secret to get to the truth.

English detective Daniel Leicester has been summoned by a dying relative to the wildest corner of Puglia, home to revered saints, fearsome mafia clans, hidden catacombs and sinister ceremonies.

As Daniel discovers that his Italian family's history runs deep in the veins of Puglia, old grudges resurface and life is breathed into ancient superstitions. He is enchanted by the mysteries of the region and joins a search for stolen antiquities, but when a contact is gruesomely murdered by mobsters, it's clear that mafia rule is more powerful than local mysticism. Lured by magic but trapped by the mob, Daniel finds himself unable to return to his beloved Bologna.

His family is bound to Puglia tighter than he ever imagined, and powerful people want answers he can't give. And when Daniel's daughter is snatched from the streets during a Holy Week procession, he sees first-hand just how far they're prepared to go . .

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Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, visited by all discerning travellers to Tuscany, is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages held every summer in the centre of the town. Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria are unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race. They are even witnesses to the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey, found dead the day before the race.

A murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage and a decadent society, and a history of the Palio all rolled up into one brilliant novel. What begins as a listless excursion to a medieval equestrian competition turns into a hallucinatory nightmare for Maggione and his wife, awakening their dormant libido for each other but, more dangerously, for others in their entourage. The death of the jockey is only one of the mysterious goings-on to be solved.

It soon becomes clear that there are no bystanders in the Palio.

Translated into English for the first time, this 1983 novel was first published in Italy under the title "Il Palio delle contrade morte".

The city of Venice is alive with celebrations for La Festa del Redentore: the biggest festival of the year. The canal is lined with revellers eating and drinking, and boats travel up the water to watch the spectacular firework display behind St Mark's Basilica cathedral. Nathan Sutherland and his wife Federica have been invited to watch the fireworks from the apartment of a successful local businessman.

But the festivities are interrupted when the body of one of the other guests is discovered, floating in the canal. The police rule the death an accident; an unfortunate drowning after celebrating a little too hard. But Nathan is less than convinced.

The biggest party in Venice might just have been the perfect place to commit a murder . . .