Some Bitter Taste (Paperback)

One can't help but draw a parallel between Gibb's debut success Mouthing the Words and this equally impressive second novel. The theme: the long-suffering child battling with the mental repercussions of an unhappy childhood in a quest for independence. Siblings Emma and Blue suffer the misfortune of having a deluded father and a despondent mother. Their father's mental decline leaves his wife single-handedly holding the family together, fuelling her bitterness and worsening her alcoholism. Brother and sister grow up reliant on each other but gradually drift apart facing the various challenges life brings. Ultimately both experience success, but despite this, it is impossible for either to overcome the emotional scars left after their father abandons the family. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Magdalen Nabb is magnificent on the medieval pageantry and sinister facades of her adopted Florence’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Magdalen Nabb’s books are set in a Florence so vividly brought to life that I long to go back there after reading each one.’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

When it comes to motives for crime, the past can never be forgotten. Sara Hirsch is a nervous elderly spinster who still lives in the flat above a long-standing Florentine antiquities shop in which she was raised. Frightened, she calls Marshal Guarnaccia for help, sure that strangers have been in her apartment. The marshal knows she is a lonely old woman but he is preoccupied with an investigation into an Albanian prostitution ring. Before he can respond to her latest alarm, she is found dead. The marshal's search for the villains who precipitated her death brings him into confrontation with the past, with Jewish refugees from fascism, and with English expatriates, including the ailing heir to the elegant Villa L'Uliveto, Sir Christopher Wrothesly...

Magdalen Nabb's latest in her acclaimed series of Marshal Guarnaccia mysteries. Nabb does for Florence what Donna Leon does for Venice, showing us the murky realities behind the stunning tourist exteriors.

Magdalen Nabb was born in Lancashire in 1947 and trained as a potter. She has lived in Florence since 1975, where she pursues a dual career as crime writer and children's author.

The young man, Gjergj, just disappeared. From one day to the next his few possessions vanished from the little room in the villa and that was it. The marshal often had occasion to wonder what became of him. But the Albanian problem . . . you could only do your best. At least Dori was off the streets. In a sense, you could say that was more important because there was a child involved. It would be . . . what? About three months old by now. Coming back to his carabinieri station in the Pitti Palace after a fine spring afternoon in the country, the marshal hoped to goodness this coming summer wouldn’t be as hot as the last. He still remembered the day they returned from their holidays back home in Syracuse to be hit by the suffocating heat and the crush of tourists. Florence in July . . .
The Pitti Palace dominates the neighbourhood of Oltrarno, the left bank of the river Arno; it stands just a stone’s throw from Ponte Vecchio and its huge bulk, spread out horizontally, is like a stone barrier that, from the square, closes off the view of the Boboli hill behind it . . . It is difficult to imagine, behind the severe, rusticated facade, rhythmically spanned by arcades, the hidden garden rising up the hillside which the visitor discovers only after crossing the threshold of the palace, as the large courtyard opens up before him . . .
Marshal Guarnaccia flipped the pages of the guidebook. Pretty pictures. Cost a pretty penny, too. He was willing to bet that the woman who had left it behind when she came in to report her lost or stolen wallet had left that on the counter when she bought the guide. Once you started for-getting things in this heat . . .
He leaned back in his leather chair with a sigh. You come back from holiday, fresh and hopeful, and you think everything will be different. Then you walk back into your office and everything’s the same.
A young carabiniere knocked and peered in at Marshal Guarnaccia’s door. He looked up.‘ Has that woman come back for this book?’
‘No, she hasn’t. Can I send in the next one?’
‘How many more of them are out there?’
‘Just four in the waiting room but there’s that prostitute— I told her to come in this morning.’
‘Oh.’
‘Did I do wrong? She won’t talk to anybody but you, and Lorenzini said—’
‘You did quite right. And if she turns up I want to see her straight away.’
‘Yes, Marshal. So shall I . . .?’
‘Just give me two minutes, son, will you?’
What good would two minutes do? Well, he could take his jacket off, for a start. Only nine-thirty and it was sweltering. It was true that down home in Syracuse the temperature often reached one hundred and two, one hundred and four, even one hundred and five degrees, but there was always a breeze from the sea. Florence in July . . . He flipped through the rest of the brightly coloured guidebook.
The slope leading up to the fountain of Neptune from which one has one of the most beautiful panoramas of the city.
It was true and what’s more, here he was inside the Pitti Palace and that view was right outside his window. Only he couldn’t open the window or even the shutters because it was too hot. There were no words to describe Florence in July. If only the Arno valley weren’t so stagnant. Breathing the same soup of evaporating river, car fumes, sweat, and drains day after day made you long to stay indoors where it was cool and clean. Every evening on the news they told you that children, invalids, asthmatics, and the elderly should avoid going out during the hottest hours of the day. Marshals of carabinieri were not a protected species, it seemed. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.