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Property of Blood (Unabridged)
 
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Property of Blood (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

by Magdalen Nabb (Author), Bill Wallis (Narrator)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Audio Download
  • Listening Length: 7 hours and 56 minutes
  • Program Type: Audiobook
  • Version: Unabridged
  • Publisher: Random House Audiobooks
  • Audible Release Date: 3 Mar 2011
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004QSDWFC
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product Description

Olivia, an American-born model, married Count Ugo Brunamonti, a feckless, soon impoverished aristocrat. After his death, she supported her children by starting a fashion house, which has prospered. When she is kidnapped, the crime is reported to Marshal Guarnaccia by her daughter, who may have been the intended victim.

Kidnapping is almost a second business for the Sardinians nominally engaged in raising sheep in the Tuscan hills. They inhabit a vast wilderness where a victim can be hidden away forever, and where those searching for her will be quickly spotted. The government's official policy is not to permit the payment of ransom. But if the money isn't paid, the kidnappers cannot let their victim go free. It would set a bad example. In this case, Guarnaccia suspects another problem. Can it be that Olivia's children are unwilling to pay the ransom? Is this more than a random crime?

©2003 Magdalen Nabb; (P)2011 Random House Audio Go

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Kidnap thriller 26 Mar 2009
By Marshall Lord TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
Contessa Olivia Brunamonti, the heroine of the story, is an American former supermodel, who some decades previously had married an Italian count with a famous name but not much money.

After Count Brunamonti's death, Olivia used a combination of her own former fame as an international supermodel, her husband's family name, and her skills in the fashion industry, to build a successful fashion house. The story begins when her children are grown and her daughter has followed in Olivia's footsteps by becoming a famous supermodel in her own right.

Unfortunately a bunch of criminals wrongly assume from the Contessa's famous name and the success of her business that she must be far more wealthy than is actually the case (Olivia's husband having left her far more in the way of debts than tangible assets.) So they target her family for kidnap. Striking in the dark and intending to grab the daughter, they accidentaly kidnap Olivia herself.

The first part of the book and further sections through the narrative provide a chilling account of the contessa's ordeal at the hands of the kidnappers, which is real enough to be quite frightening. The book also contains a detective story as Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia faces a race against time to rescue Olivia, and examines a number of issues including

* survival - how people in a dangerous situation react to maximise their chances of living through it

* Stockholm syndrome, e.g. how some prisoners come to sympathise with their captors, though the heroine of this story is no Patty Hearst

* how anti-kidnapping laws can penalise the victims (with reference to a law which freezes the assets of the family of kidnap victims to prevent them paying ransoms)

* family relationships: the contessa's son and daughter are bitterly divided about whether to go to the police when she is kidnapped, and there are other family issues which I won't explain in more detail to avoid spoiling the story.

This is one of a series of books featuring Marshal Guarnaccia. Not a cheerful read but a fairly powerful one.
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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
The Best 4 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback
You won't be able to lay this book down till you get to the third chapter - if then!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:  4 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Nabb: A Storyteller with Style, Insight and EQ 8 Jan 2003
By L. Simpson - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Magdalen Nabb's detective (The Marshall) is based in Florence and nobody captures the dark side of that brilliantly lit town better than Nabb.

"Property of Blood" represents a change for Nabb in that great chunks of this book are written as if in the first person, by a woman who has been kidnapped. I couldn't help but ponder whether Nabb herself had spent time with victims of this all too common Italian crime: the accounts of the Italianized-American fasion maven's plight are chilling. Nabb really gets inside her soul.

The tale is a page turner despite the fact that there are some things the reader knows right from the start. Those who are familiar with Nabb's work will recognize the intricate misunderstandings that The Marshall encounters because he, as usual, fails to acknowledge his own gifts and the esteem in which he is held by his colleagues.

Here, too, we meet the family dynamic of the Marshall's own relatives contrasted with that of the victim's family in the characteristic manner that is so revealing of modern Italian life.

Nabb is amazing and this may be her best yet. If you haven't read the rest of this remarkable writer's work, you are in for a real treat of both character development (start at the beginning of The Marshall's career) and excellence of story crafting.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Excellent Italian mystery 27 Dec 2002
By "askangie" - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I read this book about a year ago when I checked it out at my local library, so pardon me if I don't remember all of the details correctly. The opening of the book describes in intense detail a harrowing kidnapping, from the point of view of the kidnappee. You won't be able to put it down until the character is safely?? at home--actually you won't be able to put it down until you discover what actually happened at home to bring about the horrendous crime. The detective in this series is funny but has less personality than other detectives I enjoy. However, the story--which is set in the world of fashion--makes up for any defects. Enjoy!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Kidnap thriller 26 Mar 2009
By Marshall Lord - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Contessa Olivia Brunamonti, the heroine of the story, is an American former supermodel, who some decades previously had married an Italian count with a famous name but not much money.

After Count Brunamonti's death, Olivia used a combination of her own former fame as an international supermodel, her husband's family name, and her skills in the fashion industry, to build a successful fashion house. The story begins when her children are grown and her daughter has followed in Olivia's footsteps by becoming a famous supermodel in her own right.

Unfortunately a bunch of criminals wrongly assume from the Contessa's famous name and the success of her business that she must be far more wealthy than is actually the case (Olivia's husband having left her far more in the way of debts than tangible assets.) So they target her family for kidnap. Striking in the dark and intending to grab the daughter, they accidentaly kidnap Olivia herself.

The first part of the book and further sections through the narrative provide a chilling account of the contessa's ordeal at the hands of the kidnappers, which is real enough to be quite frightening. The book also contains a detective story as Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia faces a race against time to rescue Olivia, and examines a number of issues including

* survival - how people in a dangerous situation react to maximise their chances of living through it

* Stockholm syndrome, e.g. how some prisoners come to sympathise with their captors, though the heroine of this story is no Patty Hearst

* how anti-kidnapping laws can penalise the victims (with reference to a law which freezes the assets of the family of kidnap victims to prevent them paying ransoms)

* family relationships: the contessa's son and daughter are bitterly divided about whether to go to the police when she is kidnapped, and there are other family issues which I won't explain in more detail to avoid spoiling the story.

This is one of a series of books featuring Marshal Guarnaccia. Not a cheerful read but a fairly powerful one.
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