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Product Description
Product Description
Praise for the Marshal Guarnaccia series:
“The exquisite sensibility of Magdalen Nabb’s police procedurals has all to do with the feeling of displacement that haunts her sensitively observed characters.”—The New York Times Book Review
A well-known writer is found dead in the Villa Torrini near Florence without a mark of violence on her. Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri must solve the mystery while struggling with a new legal system and a strict diet.
Magdalen Nabb was born and educated in England. She lived and wrote in Florence, where she died in August 2007.
“The exquisite sensibility of Magdalen Nabb’s police procedurals has all to do with the feeling of displacement that haunts her sensitively observed characters.”—The New York Times Book Review
A well-known writer is found dead in the Villa Torrini near Florence without a mark of violence on her. Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri must solve the mystery while struggling with a new legal system and a strict diet.
Magdalen Nabb was born and educated in England. She lived and wrote in Florence, where she died in August 2007.
From the Back Cover
Up at the Villa Torrini, a well-known writer lies dead without a mark on her body. Down in the city of Florence, Marshall Guarnaccia struggles in vain with a tough new legal system and the hunger pangs of a strict diet.
The case calls for clear thinking, but the Marshal is befuddled by lack of food and humiliated by the sarcasm of the most notorious prosecutor in town. out of his depth with the literati, but hounding his suspect nonetheless, help comes from a repressed forty-year-old memory of a ragged child in the schoolroom: Vittorio, son of the village prostitute, whose long-ago sufferings finally provide the Marshal with a solution to the sinister mystery at the heart of the Villa Torrini.
'The Marshal is an enduring creation in a lovingly realised setting'
OBSERVER
'Magdalen Nabb's books are set in a Florence so vividly realised that I long to go back there after reading each one'
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Stumbling through the morass of my parents' household where the number of books appears to increase exponentially every time I return, I chanced upon this slim volume. Having not read any of the author's previous work, and having visited the setting(Florence)on several occasions, it piqued my curiosity enough to take a chance.
Looking at this website and even at the ten year old copy , it becomes clear that this is one in a series of books profiling the adventures of the principal character, Marshal Guarnaccia of the Fiorentine Police Force. To summarise the plot briefly, the Marshal is called to the apparent suicide of an English woman who has bled to death in her bath. Upon arrival he finds her boyfriend/husband apparently oblivious to the fact through alcohol. The second plot stream involves three criminals accused of murder and Guarnaccia simultaneously battling hunger pangs induced by a diet and a chain-smoking assistant prosecutor.
The book's strength is that its written quite pacily, with a limited frills style that enables the reader to progress quickly through it. I found the character of the Marshal to be mildly amusing, if a little cliched. However, the book suffers from a fairly humdrum plot - the twist in the plot was fairly predictable and I didn't feel that the book was compulsive reading. Nevertheless, It has piqued my curiosity and it might be that I need to read more of the author's work to appreciate fully what's on offer here. All in all, not superb, but not dreadful by any means.
Looking at this website and even at the ten year old copy , it becomes clear that this is one in a series of books profiling the adventures of the principal character, Marshal Guarnaccia of the Fiorentine Police Force. To summarise the plot briefly, the Marshal is called to the apparent suicide of an English woman who has bled to death in her bath. Upon arrival he finds her boyfriend/husband apparently oblivious to the fact through alcohol. The second plot stream involves three criminals accused of murder and Guarnaccia simultaneously battling hunger pangs induced by a diet and a chain-smoking assistant prosecutor.
The book's strength is that its written quite pacily, with a limited frills style that enables the reader to progress quickly through it. I found the character of the Marshal to be mildly amusing, if a little cliched. However, the book suffers from a fairly humdrum plot - the twist in the plot was fairly predictable and I didn't feel that the book was compulsive reading. Nevertheless, It has piqued my curiosity and it might be that I need to read more of the author's work to appreciate fully what's on offer here. All in all, not superb, but not dreadful by any means.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Just finished this book in the series, got the other post this one on the bookshelf waiting to read, one of those series of books where you just need to know whats happened to the Marshal. Unlike some series you can read one after another and not feel overloaded with them. Been really difficult getting hold of these books, had to get most on line. Don't expect major action or gore in these books just sit back and take in the characters and atmosphere of Florence. Enjoy.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
20 of 24 people found the following review helpful
An Italian Maigret
7 Sep 2000
Format:Hardcover
Very much in the spirit of Simenon's Maigret series, Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia mysteries are equal parts procedural insight, portrait of society, and character study. Nabb captures the spirit of real police work, especially when complicated by the politics and bureaucracy that dominate present-day Italy. She also presents Florence in all its beauty and tawdriness, as seen through the eyes of her southern-born hero. The Marshal is a marvellous creation, an eternal outsider who thinks himself to be slow and is regularly underestimated by colleagues and criminals alike. Nabb's books are too often underestimated as well--by the likes of people who cannot spell either aficionado or eccentric--which is a shame. While Michael Dibdin's fine books centering on the adventures of Aurelio Zen are more sensational, Nabb's Guarnaccia novels have every bit as much heart and shrewd observation. I recommend them all and devoutly wish that *The Monster of Florence* would finally be published in the U. S.
4 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Like Water Dehydrating
15 April 2000
Format:Hardcover
This mystery has it all: awkward writing, a simplistic plot with no twists or turns, a plodding protagonist who never redeems himself, and snippets of a totally unnecessary and unexplained second mini-police/judicial case crowding its way throughout the main story.
This book may be the ideal reading material for excentric elderly English spinsters who speak to their dead Pomeranians or Pekinese and don't wish to have their pulses quickened.
I actually read every last word -- even to the final page -- to ensure that there was not some exceedingly clever turn of events that would make the pedestrian writing and jumble of disjointed events come together brilliantly. Nothing to fear: the author did not pull a Columbo.
If you have the choice, watch water dehydrate. It will prove to be more satisfying by several orders of magnitude.
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