Some Bitter Taste - Magdalen Nabb

A rare encounter with Marshal Guarnaccia, largely due to there not being many of Magdalen Nabb's novels on the shelves of the Barbican library. That's a sorry state of affairs, as when I do find one of her books they are always thoroughly enjoyable. Set in Florence and similar in other ways to Donna Leon's Brunetti series, as a member of the carabinieri Guarnaccia works for the other branch of Italian law and order and he is decidedly less sure of his powers of detection - but charmingly so.

In Some Bitter Taste, Marshal Guarnaccia's natural copper's instinct leads him to work out the connectin between the murder of a lonely spinster, a robbery at the palazzo of a wealthy English gent and dodgy dealings in Jewish-owned art during the Second World War.

Time to delve into the Barbican stack to find some more books by Magdalen Nabb....

Amazon.co.uk link: Some Bitter Taste - Magdalen Nabb