A Funeral of Gondolas

A Funeral of Gondolas   by Timothy Holme

 Police Inspector Achille Peroni has been transferred to Venice after successfully solving a multiple murder case in Verona, which involved prominent families and political conspiracies involving the Red Brigade.  It was hoped that a transfer would calm the media frenzy surrounding Peroni’s activities. The press has for the most part been a friend to Peroni due to of his good track record and has dubbed him the Rudolph Valentino of the police because of his excessive good looks.

Peroni is a native of the south of Italy, a true Neapolitan. He grew up in the gutters of Naples alongside of his sister pimping, stealing and managing to stay alive. A priest who had the ability to find out the secret strengths of a child and set them on the right path rescued him from this life. In Peroni’s case it was the desire for the truth. Thus was Peroni set on his current path as a law-abiding citizen as well as an enforcer of laws.

Actually Peroni has a two-fold personality. He is definitely an upright Commisario of the police, but that is sometimes just a veneer barely covering a skillful intuitive Neapolitan guttersnipe. It is partly this characteristic that helps the Inspector in his work. Chameleon-like, Peroni’s character and sometimes even his appearance changes according to the person he is interviewing. He has the knack of establishing his new personality at the beginning of the interview with the very first phrase or gesture. He can be a sympathetic figure of old world courtesy, he can be paternal, or an ignorant bureaucrat not above taking bribes.

Venice is not a city to make Peroni very happy. He has an almost unprofessional passion for crime. He likes it as highly spiced as his native Neapolitan cooking, for it is this type of crime solving that the Peroni legend was created by the press. Some part of Peroni likes the attention of the media, other parts of him cringe when he is called upon to do the exceedingly dangerous things in real life his legend would do. However here in Venice the problem is that there is no crime. Peroni feels that he has become a glorified hotel detective. His latest case involves investigating a betting ring taking place around the gondoliers currently training for their famous historical ancient regatta.

It is due to Peroni’s astuteness that he finds and solves the case rapidly but then connects it to a more serious case of the murder of a local well-known lawyer.

As Peroni and his associates investigate the death of this man, who seemed to have fingers in many pies.  It appears that something valuable had been in the lawyer’s hands and before long what is was comes to the attention of the police. The inspector realizes that behind the gambling and the murder there must be a single organizing force or person.

When it is hinted in the newspapers that Peroni’s group is moving forward successfully attempts are made on the life of Peroni himself.

 Peroni has before been in mortal danger, but so far a combination of circumstances- luck, St. Janarius, the patron saint of Naples or the Neapolitan Streak, which the newspapers called his good luck has deflected what he calls the White Lady at the last minute. He has several very close calls as he untangles the web of deceit involving ancient families, ancient traditions and murder.

This is the second Inspector Peroni mystery. The first was The Neapolitan Streak, which introduces Peroni. In Verona Peroni lived with his sister and her family, which included two children whom he adores. Part of the problem with Venice is his loneliness. The character of Peroni is a part of the draw of these excellent mysteries. He is unusual, very real, insightful and honest about his own flaws. The Italian ambience is beautifully done. The mysteries are unusual as well as complex and spicy, which is just what is what Peroni thrives on.

Felony and Mayhem press have recently published the first two books in the series. The next several are harder to come but I think would be well worth the search.  The Neapolitan Streak was first published in 1980, The Devil and Dolce Vita in 1982, The Assisi Murders in1985, and At The Lake of Sudden Death in 1987. A Funeral of Gondolas published in 1981 was a finalist for the Gold Dagger Award.

Interesting books I bumped into this week March 7-11

• Books (20)
• Kindle Store (4)

Monday

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs

  

This book was familiar only in that I saw the movie which was pretty good

The Namesake: A Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri

The latest in the Outlander series. I don't think I will read it but the reader was a true fan!.

An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon

The Rowan by Anne McCaffrey 

The Spoke by Freidrich Glauser a Vintage European Mystery

 THE SPOKE                FREIDRICH GLAUSER

Stuber who was once a Detective Chief Inspector but who now carries the rank of Sergeant in the Bern police department has come to a lovely hotel in the Canton of  Thurgau . He and his wife have come here to take part in the wedding of their daughter to Albert who is also a young policeman. 

During the evening of the wedding a young man is found dead in the back garden of the hotel. Anni the landlady of the hotel, a former sweetheart of Stuber's when he was in school, asks him to take care of the situation. Stuber feels sorry for Anni who has an invalid husband and so runs the hotel all by herself.  She tells him news of this kind will ruin the reputation of the hotel. Stuber has the body carried to the basement and he finds the man has been murdered in a most ingenious fashion by a sharpened bicycle spoke that has been cunningly buried in the torso of the corpse. 

 The Sergeant realizes at once that suspicion will fall on the man who operates a bicycle repair shop adjacent to the hotel. . He is a somewhat an unusual man with an affinity for animals and has a reputation as a local lothario despite the fact that he is not particularly handsome or particularly young. Stuber actually finds him sleeping with his pig, and keeping his feet cleaner than his face.

 

But the local police and the Bern police are glad that Stuber is on the job because his reputation precedes him.

It is not long before Sargeant Stuber  has solved this puzzle in his inimitable style and the ramifications are far reaching. It  was a good thing that this small wedding party came to be celebrated in this country hotel.

Book #53 of the 100+ Reading Challenge

Death at the Alma Mater by G. M. Malliet

St. Michael’s College is one of the lesser known of the thirty-two colleges that make up the University of Cambridge. It was founded during the time that King Henry VIII was divesting himself of his “monasteries’. It has never been very well funded, often flirting with financial disaster. The college masters would come up with different campaigns over the centuries to raise money in a very haphazard fashion.  Unusually this involved asking select old members for money. They apparently never looked across the pond to copy the American fashion of Alumna associations, which begin asking for money on a regular basis beginning the year after graduation regardless of financial stability.

On this auspicious occasion the Masters decided to ask a small group of select successful members from a particular era to come for a summer weekend so that they could proceed to wine them, dine them and pluck them as clean as possible. The Bursar would choose the best candidates for their plot while the Master, the Dean and the cook would plan the festivities that would loosen the purse strings or the leather wallet flaps as the case might be. Their main concern was how to convince the old graduates to donate money without spending any money on them. This was not too great a difficulty since the cook was an expert at making three day old bread taste like bread pudding.

Among the guests were to be Sir James, knighted for his services to literature and his wife India. Their son Sebastian is a current St. Michael’s student with an agenda of his own.

Lexy, beautiful, sexy and girl about town is a celeb who was married to James while at St. Mike’s is also coming, but she is to be with the hunky Geraldo who also was a an alum. Lexy is known mostly for her élan and for her famous haircut.

Coming as well from afar are Karl and Connie, and Texan, Augie, all three brash Americans with more to them than noise.

There are a few others mid summer visitors invited in the mix who are important, but more important is what the bursar over looked in his greed. That was the little scandal that shook the ivied walls whilst all these players were lolling about the Cam.

Sir James had at one point during their years at University been married to lovely Lexy. India Burrows, now Lady Bassett planned and executed a major campaign to make James her own. Lexy claims she no longer has feelings for James despite the fact that she stalked him like prey in her youth after the divorce.

 Now Lexy somehow winds up on a cold marble slab having been seen last by many witnesses speaking to James. He claims she still had feelings for him.

Detective Inspector Arthur St. Just of the Cambridge police is called to the scene of the crime. He and his Sergeant have the doubtful pleasure of trying to extend the weekends of all the alums while they search for the murderer. Fortunately for St. Just’s investigation, his inamorata Portia De’Ath is a professor at Cambridge and was present at the welcoming dinner on the first night of the weekend, so that she could provide a fairly good idea of the whereabouts of all the suspects at the crucial time.

The mystery at this point is who benefits from Lexy’s death? Her Latin lover, her too urbane titled ex-husband, the conniving second wife, the oil-rich Texan who was spurned by Lexy or was it some one else who had run ins with Lexy back in the   halcyon days of college life?

Detective Sergeant Fear thinks they would get through the interview’s a bit better if the suspects would stop using literary references that he can’t spell. St. Just knows the answer is right in front of him he just can’t see it yet.  However before the ink is dry on the notes from the first murder another shrouded body is seen being carried out. The Master and the Bursar have begun to rue the day they went looking for donations.  They have already gotten more than they bargained for.

This is a modern story told in the fashion of a golden age mystery. I think it is a keeper.

This is the third of G. M. Malliet’s St. Just series. The first THE DEATH OF A COSY WRITER won an Agatha award. Her second DEATH AND THE LIT CHICK was a finalist in the running for the 2010 Anthony award for best paperback.  Malliet can take any setting, stick a fork in it and let delicious irony seep out and give you a taste both tart and sweet.