The Innocent - Hardcover

Nabb, Magdalen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434013382 ISBN 13: 9780434013388

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2005

Synopsis

The unputdownable new Marshal Guarnaccia novel, from the acclaimed author of Some Bitter Taste and Property of Blood. It is spring in Florence and everyone around Marshal Guarnaccia seems to be in love, even his own son. The case he is working on, the murder of a young woman, seems to present no particular problems. No distressed parents, no political or influential connections, no pressure from the media. The investigation takes him only a few steps from home, to the Boboli gardens and to the artisans' quarter - where he knows everybody and everybody knows him. The locals also trust him - until he seems to be accusing one of them...Then everything changes. A second death follows and Guarnaccia is convinced that it is his fault. The case becomes one of the most distressing he's ever had to handle. Burdened with guilt, he finds it impossible to trust his own instincts any more...But he has to learn to do so before he can get at the truth...

About this title

About the Author

Magdalen Nabb was born in Lancashire in 1947. She has lived in Fllorence since 1975 and pursues a dual career as crime writer and children's author.

From Publishers Weekly

Last seen in Nabb's Some Bitter Taste (2002), Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia is an unusual protagonist for a crime novel: he's neither a Bond-like sophisticate nor a recovering loser; a Sicilian living in Florence, he's neither on his own turf nor in a strange land. A modest family man, a quiet and calm observer—but no macho silence, mind you—he makes his way in a town he's come to know. In lovely measured language, the author unfolds the story of a woman's body found in a pond in the Boboli Gardens. The victim is unrecognizable, so it's some time before Guarnaccia, calling on an intriguing assortment of artisans and others in his neighborhood, discovers that she's Akiko, a young Japanese apprentice to the shoemaker Peruzzi. Guarnaccia digs for answers, but when he finally identifies Akiko's mysterious lover, the chief suspect in her death, the marshal for once regrets knowing the truth. While this, the 13th Marshal Guarnaccia investigation, may be short on action (even admirers of Nabb's style may find an extended dream sequence a bit too long), it offers such pleasures as great local atmosphere and rich characterizations.
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About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0434013382
• ISBN 13: 9780434013388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356