Magdalen Nabb, a British author who wrote fourteen books featuring  Marshal Guarnaccia of the Florence police, began her run with Death of an Englishman. She moved to Florence in 1975 and lived there the rest of her sixty years. She published this book in Britain in 1981.

The story opens with a carabinieri in training discovering the murdered body of the Englishman and having then to wake the marshal who is too ill to be out of bed, but goes anyway.

Back in bed, the marshal leaves a carabinieri captain to do much of the legwork. Only when they are at an impasse does Marshal Guarnaccia recover to solve the crime.

The interplay of characters set in the streets of the Italian city is a delight to read. I give it 4 ½ stars.

Mike Lawrence