Monday, June 27, 2011

A Murder in Tuscany-Christobel Kent

A Murder in Tuscany
Christobel Kent
Minotaur, Aug 2 2011, $24.99
ISBN 9780312621025

The body of the Director of the Orfeo Trust's Creative Arts Program retreat Leona Meadows-Mascarello is found near her wrecked car in a ravine. Apparently her car went off an icy road near Florence in what is obviously a horrible accident.

Private investigator Sandro Cellini recalls doing a background check on the ruthless Leona. Although struggling to make a living and having marital problems since his wife’s slow recovery from breast cancer, Sandro sees discrepancies in what he knows. Over the objections of the program’s board, the Orfeo family, employees, and current residents at the castle where the retreat is hosted, he investigates. His wife asks why he is looking into this.

The second Sandro Cellini Italian mystery (see The Drowning River) is a fabulous whodunit in which the sleuth finds a zillion suspects residing in or near the Creative Arts Program castle as just about everyone had the means, the motive and the opportunity. At the same time his personal life appears broken as his marriage nears collapse with neither Cellini knowing how to prevent what looks inevitable. Both subplots converge on the beleaguered Colombo like sleuth in this engaging investigative thriller.

Harriet Klausner

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