-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
The Fatal Touch
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in The Fatal Touch: An Alec Blume Novel (Commissario Alec Blume 2) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for The Dogs of Rome 'A powerful and hugely compelling novel. Dark, worldly and written with tremendous style and assurance' William Boyd 'The American-born Blume is an engaging hero who might just have to potential to fill the gap left when Michael Dibdin's death ended his Italian detective Aurelio Zen's investigations' Sunday Times
Product Description
In the early hours of a Saturday morning, a body is discovered in Piazza de' Renzi. If it was just a simple fall that killed him, why is a senior Carabiniere officer so interested? Commissioner Alec Blume is immediately curious and the discovery of the dead man's notebooks reveals that there is a great deal more at stake than the unfortunate death of a down-and-out...What secrets did he know that might have made him a target? What is the significance of the Galleria Orpiment? And why are the authorities so intent on blocking Blume's investigations?
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the second in a new series set in Rome and featuring Commissioner Alec Blume, an American born Italian citizen who remained in Italy after his parents died and who joined the police and has risen through the ranks. Not quite the usual maverick we come to expect in detective stories, but with a will of his own and an integrity and way of doing things that is not always popular. A body is discovered in the Piazza de Renzi early one morning - he is the local drunk and as he has not been robbed, it would appear a tragic but unsurprising accident. Needless to say it proves to be anything but and when it is discovered that the dead man is a painter and a master forger of old masters, then more investigation is needed. Blume discovers notebooks in the dead man's studio in which secrets which have been hidden for years are about to be revealed, including the fact that the forger and his business partner once cheated the Mafia by selling them a forged painting.
Twists and turns and devious characters including one Colonel Farinelli of the art fraud department of the Questore who is more involved than he cares to admit, and is very keen indeed to track down and destroy the notebooks.
A lot of detailed description of how a forger works, the tricks he uses to recreate the aged paper and the pigments of the paint and all fascinating, as are the extracts from the hidden notebooks. Took me a while to get into The Fatal Touch but once I did I really enjoyed it. Hope this series of novels runs and runs
Twists and turns and devious characters including one Colonel Farinelli of the art fraud department of the Questore who is more involved than he cares to admit, and is very keen indeed to track down and destroy the notebooks.
A lot of detailed description of how a forger works, the tricks he uses to recreate the aged paper and the pigments of the paint and all fascinating, as are the extracts from the hidden notebooks. Took me a while to get into The Fatal Touch but once I did I really enjoyed it. Hope this series of novels runs and runs
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the second outing for Commissare Alec Blume. Once again Conor Fitzgerald has managed to create a perfectly credible picture of the Roman crime scene and police showing the rivalry between the ordinary civilian cop and the military Carabiniere. I have no idea whether it is realistic or not, but that doesn't matter. It feels real and Alec Blume feels real and one cares what happens to him and in this story quite a lot of things do happen to him, few pleasant and some with long lasting consequences.
For those of you who have not read The Dogs of Rome (you should), Commissare Alec Blume is somewhat of an outsider, not because he is a maverick cop (etc. etc.), but because he is an American who was orphaned in Italy as a teenager, so his slight detachment from his peers has a solid and believable reason. After his last adventures, his conduct is being observed, not very subtly, by the powers that be.
There is a spate of muggings targeting foreign visitors that needs sorting and a potentially more interesting suspicious death of a tramp. The tramp turns out to be an alcoholic Irish restorer/forger and suddenly the Carabiniere are interested. Officially Blume is removed as leading investigator of the case, although side issues allow him still to be involved. It soon becomes obvious that senior authorities are thwarting his attempts to be part of the investigation. Why??!!
We meet familiar characters from the previous book and several intriguing new characters. Blume is a dogged and determined investigator who can be lured into bloody-mindedness which can have disastrous consequences for himself and other major characters. No one is safe and this uncertainty and sense of danger keeps the reader on their toes.
I really enjoyed this book. It works as a stand-alone novel, but, if you haven't already, read the Dogs of Rome as well. I eagerly await the next book, due out next spring, I believe.
For those of you who have not read The Dogs of Rome (you should), Commissare Alec Blume is somewhat of an outsider, not because he is a maverick cop (etc. etc.), but because he is an American who was orphaned in Italy as a teenager, so his slight detachment from his peers has a solid and believable reason. After his last adventures, his conduct is being observed, not very subtly, by the powers that be.
There is a spate of muggings targeting foreign visitors that needs sorting and a potentially more interesting suspicious death of a tramp. The tramp turns out to be an alcoholic Irish restorer/forger and suddenly the Carabiniere are interested. Officially Blume is removed as leading investigator of the case, although side issues allow him still to be involved. It soon becomes obvious that senior authorities are thwarting his attempts to be part of the investigation. Why??!!
We meet familiar characters from the previous book and several intriguing new characters. Blume is a dogged and determined investigator who can be lured into bloody-mindedness which can have disastrous consequences for himself and other major characters. No one is safe and this uncertainty and sense of danger keeps the reader on their toes.
I really enjoyed this book. It works as a stand-alone novel, but, if you haven't already, read the Dogs of Rome as well. I eagerly await the next book, due out next spring, I believe.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"The Fatal Touch" is Conor Fitzgerald's second book in the Commissioner Alec Blume series, and a rather good mystery it is, with an intriguing focus on the world of fine art--production, reproduction and sales.
Blume is an unlikely Commissario of the Rome (as in Italy) Police, making him the fictional southern confrere of the equally fictional Guido Brunetti. His presence and position in Rome are explained in some detail by the author as the story unfolds. Overall though, his character gets somewhat shorter shrift than was the case in his debut in "Dogs of Rome", and there are other players in this story that come across as more interesting, real, scary, etc.
And the story in this case has an intriguing plot that opens with the death of an art forger who specialized in producing Renaissance and Baroque master drawings for sale to gullible, and usually greedy, collectors. As Commissario Blume delves into the forger's death, he quickly finds that it leads into a messy mix of artistic misdeed, betrayal, broken relationships and connections with some of the most unsavory government officials in the country.
One such unpleasant character is the off-the-charts unscrupulous Colonel Farinelli of the Art Theft Division of the Carabinieri, who it will turn out, had been a partner in crime with the deceased forger. Author Fitzgerald invests a great deal of time and detail to bring this character into focus, and succeeds in presenting the reader with a menacing vision of the older Orson Wells in "Touch of Evil" (my impression at least).
Another character in this story who is rather skillfully developed is Inspector Caterina Matteolii, who seems destined to become Commissario Blume's better professional half. Caterini is a solid and credible character who brings real interest to the book.
"The Fatal Touch" has an engrossing plot, a fair amount of action and a really terrific villain, who is as smart as he is ruthless. Good read for any mystery lover, but if you are also interested in Italy and fine art, you will get a great kick from this work. Recommended.
Blume is an unlikely Commissario of the Rome (as in Italy) Police, making him the fictional southern confrere of the equally fictional Guido Brunetti. His presence and position in Rome are explained in some detail by the author as the story unfolds. Overall though, his character gets somewhat shorter shrift than was the case in his debut in "Dogs of Rome", and there are other players in this story that come across as more interesting, real, scary, etc.
And the story in this case has an intriguing plot that opens with the death of an art forger who specialized in producing Renaissance and Baroque master drawings for sale to gullible, and usually greedy, collectors. As Commissario Blume delves into the forger's death, he quickly finds that it leads into a messy mix of artistic misdeed, betrayal, broken relationships and connections with some of the most unsavory government officials in the country.
One such unpleasant character is the off-the-charts unscrupulous Colonel Farinelli of the Art Theft Division of the Carabinieri, who it will turn out, had been a partner in crime with the deceased forger. Author Fitzgerald invests a great deal of time and detail to bring this character into focus, and succeeds in presenting the reader with a menacing vision of the older Orson Wells in "Touch of Evil" (my impression at least).
Another character in this story who is rather skillfully developed is Inspector Caterina Matteolii, who seems destined to become Commissario Blume's better professional half. Caterini is a solid and credible character who brings real interest to the book.
"The Fatal Touch" has an engrossing plot, a fair amount of action and a really terrific villain, who is as smart as he is ruthless. Good read for any mystery lover, but if you are also interested in Italy and fine art, you will get a great kick from this work. Recommended.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
competent police procedural
The Fatal Touch has a lot going for it. It has a strong, intricate plot, with a disparate range of characters and several cleverly interwoven strands. Read more
Published 19 days ago by Rob Kitchin
A classy book
I'd recommend reading the first novel in the series (The dogs of Rome) first, because it establishes the main character and his environment nicely. Read more
Published 2 months ago by H. McGregor
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
