The Innocent
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The thirteenth Marshal Guarnaccia Investigation
The body of a woman has been found half-submerged in an ornamental fish pond high up in Florence’s Boboli Gardens. At first, the corpse cannot be identified, rendered unrecognizable by feeding fish, but the Marshal traces other clues to find answers. The victim was a young Japanese woman apprenticed to one of Florence’s legendary custom shoemakers, crotchety old Peruzzi. Could he have killed his protégé? Or did jealousy drive his other apprentice to murder? The neighbors have seen Akiko with a lover—a brilliant young carabinieri—who has disappeared. Has he fled to avoid arrest? The marshal must travel to Rome to complete his investigation.
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Last seen in Nabb's Some Bitter Taste (2002), Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia is an unusual protagonist for a crime novel: he's neither a Bond-like sophisticate nor a recovering loser; a Sicilian living in Florence, he's neither on his own turf nor in a strange land. A modest family man, a quiet and calm observer but no macho silence, mind you he makes his way in a town he's come to know. In lovely measured language, the author unfolds the story of a woman's body found in a pond in the Boboli Gardens. The victim is unrecognizable, so it's some time before Guarnaccia, calling on an intriguing assortment of artisans and others in his neighborhood, discovers that she's Akiko, a young Japanese apprentice to the shoemaker Peruzzi. Guarnaccia digs for answers, but when he finally identifies Akiko's mysterious lover, the chief suspect in her death, the marshal for once regrets knowing the truth. While this, the 13th Marshal Guarnaccia investigation, may be short on action (even admirers of Nabb's style may find an extended dream sequence a bit too long), it offers such pleasures as great local atmosphere and rich characterizations.
