Geburtstag in Florenz

Marshal Guarnaccia Mystery #9

by Magdalen Nabb

Praise for the Marshal Guarnaccia "The exquisite sensibility of Magdalen Nabb's police procedurals has all to do with the feeling of displacement that haunts her sensitively observed characters."- The New York Times Book Review A well-known writer is found dead in the Villa Torrini near Florence without a mark of violence on her. Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri must solve the mystery while struggling with a new legal system and a strict diet. Magdalen Nabb was born and educated in England. She lived and wrote in Florence, where she died in August 2007.

Genres: Mystery, Italy, Fiction, Crime, Procedural, Mystery Thriller, Italian Literature

271 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1993

About the author

MAGDALEN NABB was born in Lancashire in 1947 and trained as a potter. In 1975 she abandoned pottery, sold her home and her car, and came to Florence with her son, knowing nobody and speaking no Italian. She has lived there ever since, and pursues a dual career as crime writer and children's author.

She has written fourteen crime novels featuring Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri, all set in Florence, which she describes as 'a very secret city. Walk down any residential street and you have no idea what is going on behind those blank walls. It's a problem the Marshal comes up against all the time.'

Magdalen Nabb also writes the immensely successful Josie Smith books, set in her native Lancashire, which form the basis of the Granada children's TV series, Josie Smith, scripted by the author. Her first book, Josie Smith, was runner-up for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1989, and in l99l, Josie Smith and Eileen was winner of the prestigious Smarties Book Prize for the 6-8 age group.

Series:
* Marshal Guarnaccia Mystery
* Josie Smith

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Marshal at the Villa Torrini" is the 9th book in the series featuring Marshal Guarnaccia. I thoroughly enjoy these books, they are complete mysteries without a lot of blood and gore. The Marshal is slow, plodding, and meticulous in how he approaches any crime, no matter how small or complicated it might be. There are only five more books in this series. I have been reading them slowly so as to make them last!

Jacket notes: "Up at the Villa Torrini, a well-known writer lies dead without a mark on her body. Down in the city of Florence, Marshal Guarnaccia struggles in vain with a tough new legal system and the hunger pangs of a strict diet. The case calls for clear thinking, but the Marshal is befuddled by lack of food and humiliated by the sarcasm of the most notorious prosecutor in town. Out of his depth with the literati, but hounding his suspect nonetheless, help comes from a repressed forty-year-old memory of a ragged child in the schoolroom: Vittorio, son of the village prostitute, whose long-ago sufferings finally provide the Marshal with a solution to the sinister mystery at the heart of the Villa Torrini."

[Hanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es ist sehr schön geschrieben, aber ich fand es ziemlich schwer die Personen auseinander zu halten. Ich finde, dass es keinen spannenden Höhepunkt hat. Zu beginn ist es spannend aber die Spannung nimmt immer mehr und mehr ab.
Finde ich schade, aber im totalen ist die Sprache schön geschrieben und ist Ok einmal es zu gelesen haben.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a Florentine, Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia, investigates an accident involving a famous author.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't recall that I've read another Nabb, at least lately but have been waiting a while to read those on my tbr. Not sure I need to have bothered. Slow moving, the Marshal doesn't express himself either internally or to others. Maybe another reason is that he's on a diet so there's no food described. I'll try another...

[David C Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice woman with a horrible husband dies. The Marshal figures things out because he knows families, good, bad and in between. Good man the Marshal. Nabb is very sharp on human behavior from the braggadocio of the husband to a very small scene where shopkeepers make a drama out of signing for a package.

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do like Marshal Guarnaccia and I started this because we were going to Italy. I read a good deal of it in Florence. But for some reason, I didn't enjoy it as much as some of the others. It just didn't grab and hold my attention like the first 3 or 4 in the series.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Marshal is such an original character - with none of the charm or genius of other detectives but with a sensitivity and humanity that is engaging. This story about relationships and families and pride is well told.

[Janet Adkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've not read any others in this series. I didn't like the style and found this one hard to follow. I also didn't get much of a sense of place, which based on the cover reviews I expected. The mystery itself was also not engaging to me.

[Darius Ostrowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The marshal, still unsure of himself, continues to plod through another case. Wonderful to visit him again.

[George M]

Taking a bath turned fatal.

[Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 sterne.
War hin und wieder sehr verwirrend geschrieben und so viele Namen, da kannte man sich schnell nicht aus.

[Sebastian Rinken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Off-the-mill, or so it seems to me. Florentine setting notwithstanding: lacks drive and psychological complexity.

[Kb · Rating 3 out of 5]

For her ninth Marshal Guarnaccia entry, Magdalen Nabb has written an engaging mystery—engaging in that it arouses and maintains curiosity about what happened to the woman who was found dead in her bath. Another strong point of Magdalen Nabb’s work, her illustration of characters and the relationships between them, also serves to carry the story along.

Having said that, the beginning of the book and one entire chapter that appears later in the story is taken up with an unrelated court case. It doesn’t add anything and seems only to serve as padding to bulk up the book to novel length.

Not one of the better ones in this series.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12548975

Odd little tale.

I haven't read anything by Nabb before and had not heard of her.

The Marshal is almost always referred to as "the marshal" in the book, rather than by his first or last name. That gives the story a funny kind of edge.

The Marshal is called to the scene of a death: Celia Forbes, a respected, well-known writer is found dead in her bath. Her husband is found in a room nearby, drunk and out of control. There are no signs that the victim was held under water or of any force used at all, yet the Marshal suspects murder. And he suspects the husband. It is logical, given that the man is not grieving, is quite a bit younger than his wife, has a woman on the side, loves spending money yet makes none. The victim was well-off financially.

Another odd side: Celia has a daughter. She has been staying with someone else and it appears that there is no love between her and her stepfather. Does this play into it?

At times the story seems to move jerkily. We are in a courtroom hearing another case or we jump from one location to another. Almost as if Nabb was too impatient to fill in the blanks. Otherwise it was easy enough to follow. And reasonably entertaining. Good airplane reading.

[Candy Wood]

Just as I’m thinking one reason I like this series is that I can’t imagine it on TV, I discover that there was at least one episode called The Marshal on British television in 1993. I’ll bet it was very different from the book. Marshal Guarnaccia has been compared to Columbo, but in the books, it’s not just that others underestimate his detective skills--readers know that he has little confidence in them himself. He’s always an outsider, and the Villa Torrini case is just the kind that makes him aware of that: as a Sicilian, he doesn’t quite belong in Florence, and he isn’t as educated or as rich as the Florentines and foreigners involved in the case. He’s not comfortable in his role as mentor to his young driver, either. But even when he doesn’t seem to be listening, he cares about people, and his empathy in this case leads him to a solution, not a neat one but the more messy kind that life is likely to offer. No car chases, shootouts, or forensic science, just human relationships, perfect for a good read.

[Fiona Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am becoming a Guarnaccia enthusiast. This book has a lovely contrast between the neurotic, stressed murderer and calm, slow, detective, sitting impassively and apparently not attending to the hysterical burbling, while he absorbs background noise and tries to remember why this man reminds him of a boyhood friend. He can be an alarming boss and an infuriating husband but there are those around him who appreciate his abilities and value his judgement. I am trying to read the books slowly as I have now read half of them and am anticipating how sad it will be to have read them all.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am quite infatuated with the Marshal - with the humor of his observations, small complaints, and self doubt; with the weight of the confessions that come to him; with the affection he has for his family, his men, his neighbors, his adopted city of Florence. My only complaint about this book is that it was too short, I could have taken a story about twice as long, even as I knew the way the mystery itself was going to go early on. So did the Marshal. The details and the proof took time, the Marshal's deliberate time. I would have liked it to take even more.

[Cornelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich hatte mir die Geschichte etwas temperamentvoller vorgestellt, weil sie in Italien spielt.
Aber es war schön zu lesen und die Charktäre sind stimmungsvoll beschrieben.

[Petra Willemse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good entry in the Marshal series. This one has him in the hills overlooking Florence and considering the intricacies of one married couple's life.