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Death Of An Englishman (2003)

Death of an Englishman (2003)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.51 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
1569472548 (ISBN13: 9781569472545)
Language
English
Publisher
soho crime

About book Death Of An Englishman (2003)

[My comments are taken from a mailing list discussion and as such contain spoilers!] [on the setting] I'm about halfway through and I'm finding that Florence is coming more alive the further I read. I like the way that I don't feel like I'm on a sightseeing tour but that it's the accumulation of small details, like having to do removals and street cleaning in the middle of the night in order to avoid blocking the narrow streets, that are really bringing the scenery to life for me. I also like the juxtaposition of Florence with characters like the vicar and his wife and Miss White, this kind of comparison brings out the foreignness in the setting for me. [on the police characters, uniforms] Generally I got confused with which police characters were which. I found the two British detectives the easiest to keep track of. I was a bit bemused as to why the Marshal was ill for most of the book when it seems that this is his series. The Marshal was the clearest of the Italian policemen to me though. I found the Captain completely forgettable and though I couldn't forget Bacci he didn't make a big impression on me. I guess that there are a lot of policemen in a relatively short book and they couldn't all be fully fleshed out. Well, I think uniforms are a useful recognition aid to know who is supposed to be directing the traffic or serving the customers or whatever but I'm not a fan of their use as status symbols and wouldn't want to wear one myself. I don't remember the big deal about Bacci's uniform, it must hve gone over my head as I think quite a lot did in this book, probably because of the very fragmented way I read it. [on the non-police characters] First of all I had reader's confusion syndrome with two many C's! Cipolla, Cesarini and Cipriani were way too alike as names for me to keep them straight and I spent half the book flicking back to figure out which one was which. I think that means I didn't find the characters well enough fleshed out. I found the expats much simpler to keep straight than the Italians. They seemed to be both more individual than the Italians but also more stereotypical examples of the English abroad at the same time. I didn't have a good picture of him as he was dead before we met him and the fragments of his life we found out about didn't seem to present a consistent picture. I thought it was odd that the British police had been sent over to help out thoough merely because he was related to someone influential. That seemed a bit odd. I think the decision to portray the victim as a character or an object is the author's really and the reader has to go along with it. I think I prefer books where the victim is a character but it all depends on the book.

#1 Marshal Guarnaccia mystery, featuring this Carabinieri stationed in Florence, Italy. It's Christmas Eve, the Marshal has a terrible case of flu, and he's planning to head south to visit family for the holidays, but a murdered Englishman who had retired to live there in Italy takes precedence. A somewhat pudgy man with an eye condition that makes them water profusely in any sort of sunlight, the Marshal actually sleeps through much of the beginning stages of the investigation, so wracked with fever is he, and his subordinates do much of the evidence gathering. The Englishman was apparently well-connected politically too, as Scotland Yard sends two detectives to observe and assist where needed, although they aren't officially there. Eventually though, the Marshal is well enough to put his two cents in and solves the case. This was a slim little book, quickly read, although not really that engaging. It was interesting to see how things looked from the Carabinieri side of Italian police work vs. the regular police that I've read about in a couple of other mystery series, but I couldn't really get interested much in any of the characters in this book and found the mystery rather blah. It was an okay read, but not good enough for me to want to pursue further entries in the series, at least for now.

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This is the first book in Nabb's detective series about Marshal Guarnaccia and after reading it...i'll be moving on to the next book in the series.There are two reasons i started reading this book: 1) i'm always ready for a new detective series, and 2) most of this series takes place in Florence, Italy...where i was fortunate to be able to spend two weeks this past autumn. Wherever the storyline took the characters i was able to picture exactly what it looked like. I fell in love with Florence and Tuscany when i was there...and being able to read a book that takes place in that fantastic location is far too delicious to ignore.In regards to the writing and the plot itself...Nabb does a great job of building a mystery that is fast-paced and wraps up very nicely. The interesting thing is that you don't learn much about Marshal Guarnaccia in this first book as he's sick with the flu for most of it....and yet throughout the series it's Guarnaccia who is the main protagonist.My list of authors for whom i am reading the backlist of books is ever increasing! But as i said, an Italian mystery is far too enticing to ignore.
—Monica

At first, I was somewhat stunned when I realized that most of the action in this book would take place while the marshal-- the main character-- is flat on his back in bed. But then I fell under the spell of Magdalen Nabb's Florence. This slim volume contains an entire feast of the streets and neighborhoods of the city, of the Italian way of life, of the keen observation of people's behavior and habits, that I willingly let Guaraccia recuperate while I did my own observing and putting clues together. Part of the magic of this book is having two Scotland Yard detectives working with the Italian caribinieri. There is the difficulty of not speaking each other's language as well as the differences in investigative procedures. While I watched this group of policemen slowly piece together facts that show the deceased Englishman wasn't as respectable as they first thought, I put together what I'd observed. Nabb is masterful at using Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson Method: the Italian and British police being Watson, the marshal being Holmes, and the reader somewhere between the two.First published in 1981, Death of an Englishman, isn't a foray into the dazzling science of forensics. This is a mystery for those who like to observe, ponder and arrive at their own conclusions. How close your deductions are to the author's solution depends on how well you've observed and pondered a disparate group of people all living in the same old apartment building. A batty old Englishwoman operating her own museum, a husband who always seems to be coming home during the wee hours of the morning, a high-spirited little girl (who reminded me more than a little of "The Ransom of Red Chief"), and several more should provide readers with everything they need to know... but it's not until Marshal Salvatore Guaraccia has recuperated sufficiently that everything falls into place. He proves that there's scarcely a thing that can escape his eagle eye.The setting, the characters, the intricately constructed plot with its touches of humor and compassion... Death of an Englishman is a leisurely-paced book that I enjoyed even more than I'd anticipated. I look forward to returning to Florence and observing the marshal in the future.
—Cathy Cole

The first in the Marshal Guarnaccia series makes a promising start. Set in Florence, the marshal wants nothing more than to head home to Sicily for the Christmas holidays but is laid low with the flu. Desperately trying to recover in order that he may return to his family for the holidays, he is called out to a murder site... an Englishman had been shot in the back, the murder weapon is missing and there are no apparent clues. It turns out the man is from a well-connected family in England, and Scotland Yard dispatches 2 of its own to Florence to work with the local police in solving this mystery. With an interesting cast of characters and possible suspects, we are led a merry chase, but it's the marshal's quiet observations that solve the case.
—Caroline

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