Return to Umbria

August 15, 2016
The beautiful Umbrian towns of Orvieto and Todi provide the setting for Wagner’s well-written fourth mystery featuring translator Rick Montoya (after 2015’s Murder Most Unfortunate). Rick, an Italian-American based in Rome, and his lover, detective Betta Innocenti, are visiting the area with a mission: to persuade Rick’s 21-year-old cousin, Fabrizio, to return to his family home in Perugia and break off his relationship with an Orvieto matron. On the way up to Orvieto, Rick exchanges a few words with three American women. When one of them ends up dead, Rick is drawn into the police investigation as an interpreter. The motive for the victim’s death seems to be linked to her experiences in Orvieto as an art student many years before. Wagner skillfully inserts nuggets of local culture without slowing down the narrative pace, and perhaps even more importantly, he gets Italy right. He understands the nuances of Italian manners and mentality as well as the glorious national preoccupation with food.

Orvieto is the latest stop for translator Rick Montoya (Murder Most Unfortunate, 2015, etc.), who stumbles across corpses in every hidden corner of ItalyThere's nothing illegal in the behavior Rick's uncle, Commissario Piero Fontana of the Rome police, sends his nephew to investigate, unless you think it's criminally stupid for Rick's cousin Fabrizio to partly set up housekeeping with an older married woman in the ancient walled city a short drive from Rome. Tullia Aragona pays for Fabrizio's Orvieto apartment, where she visits him often but goes home to her shady husband, Vincenzo. Rick's mission is to persuade young Fabrizio to return to Rome. Hoping to see the sights, he invites his current girlfriend, Betta Innocenti, along but is soon pressed into service by the police. Detective Paolo LoGuercio, temporarily in charge of the small-town Orvieto force, is confronted with the murder of an American woman, Rhonda Van Fleet. Unused to serious crime, LoGuercio not only needs Rick to translate as he interviews Rhonda's traveling companions, her adult daughter, Gina, and her longtime friend Francine, but relies increasingly on Rick's instincts as an amateur sleuth. Rhonda came to Orvieto, where she'd learned ceramics as a student, to reconnect with her past. But which of those connections proved fatal? As Mayor Bernardo Boscoli and tourism booster Livio Morgante urge LoGuercio to close the case quickly, Rick leaves Betta to explore Orvieto's medieval streets on her own while he tries to unmask a killer. Once again, Wagner's setting battles his plot for the reader's attention, leaving detection in Orvieto's soft volcanic dust. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2016

Translator Rick Montoya (Murder Most Unfortunate) is in Oreiveto to persuade his cousin to return home to Rome when he gets drawn into investigating the murder of American Rhonda Van Fleet. Did Rhonda's past in Oreiveto, studying ceramics, lead to her death? The setting almost overwhelms the plot, but Rick is a charming and appealing amateur sleuth.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016
Translator Rick Montoya's uncle, a high-ranking police officer in Rome, asks Rick to travel to Orvieto in central Italy to convince Rick's young cousin to end his affair with a wealthy, married older woman and return to his family in Perugia. Rick accedes to the request, seeing the possibility of a short vacation with his girlfriend, Betta. While traveling on the funicolare (a cable railroad) to Orvieto, Rick and Betta briefly meet three American women, one of whom is later murdered. After contacting the local police department to share information about his encounter with the women, Rick is asked by the detective to serve as translator when the victim's traveling companions are interviewed, and he soon becomes involved in the police investigation. The novel is framed by the beauty of the Umbrian countryside and Orvieto, its architecture and art, and its long, fascinating history; and the author seamlessly weaves Italian life and culture into a mystery that involves secrets from the victim's past and highlights a well-drawn main character whose half-American, half-Italian heritage provides an interesting point of view on both the setting and people.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)