A Dead Man in Naples

October 5, 2009
Pearce’s sixth mystery to feature Scotland Yard’s Sandor Seymour (after 2008’s A Dead Man in Barcelona
) deftly mixes humor with a whodunit plot. A couple of years before WWI, the Foreign Office sends Seymour to Italy to unofficially investigate the stabbing death of Lionel Scampion, a British consular representative. As a diplomat, Scampion wasn’t altogether satisfactory, going so far in his enthusiasm as to volunteer to fight for Italy in its war with Libya. Seymour must consider a hypothesis raised at the inquest that Scampion’s murder had to do with a rivalry between bicycling clubs as well as the possibility that the killer acted from political or personal motives. As in the author’s better-known Mamur Zapt series (The Mark of the Pasha
, etc.), Pearce does better at clever word play and investing his characters with charming foibles than establishing clues to buttress a fair-play solution. Still, this entry stands as the best to date in the Dead Man series.

November 1, 2009
War, honor and the undervaluation of women, circa 1900.

When Lionel Scampion, a senior member of the British consulate assigned to Naples, is knifed in broad daylight for no apparent reason, Seymour of Scotland Yard's Special Branch (A Dead Man in Barcelona, 2008, etc.) is sent to investigate. So as not to alert the Neapolitans, he brings along Chantale, his stunning Moroccan fiance, and explains that they've come to enjoy a pre-honeymoon vacation. Scampion, a keen cyclist, may have been killed by an overzealous racing competitor, but Seymour thinks a lottery ticket found in his shorts could lead to a different motive. The detective is also intrigued by Scampion's meetings with a married Marchesa and his interest in an Arab widow denied the pension due her because her Italian husband died fighting in the Libya campaign. Even more suspect are the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia and Sursum Corda, a secret society that champions certain political causes. Seymour enjoys his snail-salad lunches, his chats with a mathematician-turned-priest with a gift for picking lottery winners, his mild flirtations with the Marchesa and the views he and Chantale share of the bay at sunset. Meanwhile, plans are laid for a major cycling race pitting the army against the locals; missing bicycle parts turn up in Libya; and the widow gets her pension only after a word from the Camorra, which will demand favors in return.

Glacially slow, but with well-aimed jabs at turn-of-the-century attitudes.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2009
British Special Branch officer Seymour is sent to Naples to investigate consulate official Lionel Scampions murder. To suggest he is merely on vacation, he travels with his fianc'e, Chantale. Did Scampion, an avid bicyclist, die at the hand of a racing rival? Or did he anger a member of the powerful Camorra, a Mafia-like criminal society? Through talking to people and decoding a lottery ticket, Seymour identifies Scampions killer and the motive for the crime. Taking place during the Italian-Libyan war in the early 1900s, the story intertwines details of the Naples lottery, the war, bicycling, the Camorra, and daily life in Naples into a leisurely paced but involving story. Told from multiple points of view (the numerous characters are a bit difficult to keep straight), the novel nevertheless captures the mood of early-twentieth-century Italy. Pearce is also the author of the Mamur Zapt series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)