Turn to Stone

November 25, 2019
Ziskin’s enjoyable seventh Ellie Stone mystery (after 2018’s A Stone’s Throw) takes smart, self-possessed photojournalist Ellie to Florence, Italy, in 1963. She has been invited there by Professor Alberto Bondinelli to attend a symposium and accept an award on behalf of her late father, a medieval poetry scholar. This is to be followed by a relaxing stay at a country estate in Tuscany. Not a full day passes before Bondinelli’s lifeless body is fished from the Arno River. Even though the students and colleagues who helped organize the event are shocked by the death, they agree to complete their academic duties and to spend the weekend at the country house. When a rubella outbreak forces the participants, each one a distinctive character, to extend their stay, they pass the time telling stories, some of which touch tangentially on the murder. Plenty of possible motives keep the reader guessing to the unexpected ending. Erudite and often amusing digressions add to the story’s charm. Agent: William Reiss, John Hawkins & Assoc.

January 1, 2020
Ellie Stone has mixed feelings about her trip to Italy in 1963 to attend a symposium to be held in Florence in honor of her late father, a medieval scholar who made no bones about his disdain for Ellie's life choices, including her fondness for Dewar's and her frivolous career as a reporter for an upstate New York newspaper. Then, upon arrival, Ellie learns that the body of the symposium's organizer, Alberto Bondinelli, a colleague of her father's, has been discovered in the Arno. Murder or suicide? Snooping around the investigation piques Ellie's interest, and she has plenty of time to pry after finding herself under quarantine?thanks to a feared rubella outbreak?at a villa outside the city with a group from the symposium. With tongues loosed by freely flowing wine and a parlor game in which the guests tell each other stories, Ellie unearths multiple secrets among both the scholars and Bondinelli's family, some of which extend to WWII. This is a bit slow going in spots, but the lush settings and mouthwatering food will keep readers happy, if a little fidgety.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)