Bitter Remedy

July 28, 2014
Fitzgerald’s intricately plotted fifth Alec Blume novel (after 2013’s The
Memory Key) takes the police commissioner from Rome to an unnamed village in central Italy for a holiday that proves anything but restful. Ingesting some poisonous seeds lands him in the hospital, and a car accident further extends his stay. The solicitous hostess at the villa where he’s staying, Silvana, visits his bedside, as does her jealous fiancé, Niki Solito, who owns a sleazy nightclub. When Blume’s presence becomes known in the village, he’s approached by Nadia Antonescu, who asks Blume to find a friend of hers, Alina Paulescu, a club girl who’s gone missing. Blume’s daring leaps of imagination to link clues, as well as inspired investigative help from Chief Insp. Caterina Mattiola, his lover back in Rome, provide a surprising resolution to this puzzler. Agent: Sarah Ballard, United Agents.

September 15, 2014
A prickly Italian police inspector battles illness, culture shock and personal demons before stumbling onto a case that stabilizes him. Somewhere in Europe, a captive hairdresser named Alina dreams of escape. Elsewhere, Caterina Mattiola has a surprisingly calm reaction to the discovery that her lover and baby daddy, investigator Alec Blume, has taken a holiday solo and without warning. Indeed, the frazzled Blume is in seclusion at a villa supervised by the brisk Silvana. The story advances murkily, alternating between Alina and Blume and moving freely through time. He undergoes unsatisfying therapy as details of Alina's past are sketched in: her Romanian upbringing, her Harry Potter obsession, her bubbly best friend, Nadia Antonescu. The two plots are eventually brought together by the disreputable Niki Solito, a slick nightclub owner who is a former (or perhaps current) lover of Silvana, as well as a link to the missing Alina. Nadia had traveled ahead of her friend, but when the two are finally reunited in Italy, Alina finds Nadia working at Niki's club and seriously careworn. Nadia credits Niki with "rescuing" her, but Alina is not so sure he's trustworthy. When Nadia appeals to Blume for help in finding her missing friend, the story finds focus and gains momentum, also giving Blume, perhaps, the remedy for what's been ailing him. The off-center characters, the narrative woolgathering and the way the seemingly disparate fragments of plot converge are part of Fitzgerald's tantalizing method in Blume's stylish fifth caper (The Memory Key, 2013, etc.). Readers new to the series may feel a bit lost.

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