From Venice to Sicily, in the comfort of home...
Two mysteries took me there. Leon's Commissario Brunetti is excellent company in which to navigate the canals and backstreets of Venice as well as the intricacies of Italian bureaucracy. He is thoughtful, humane, and, above all, decent. I can see that I need to investigate more of the Brunetti series--around thirty of them.
Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano's home turf is Sicily. He's a bit more brash, but quite engaging as he deals with the disappearance of a financial scam artist.
Leon is American by birth, but a long-time resident of Venice, writing in English. Camilleri writes in Italian so this is a translation.
Both are definitely good reads. And both left me hungry for the kind of real Italian food their protagonists enjoy so much.
5 comments:
As you know, there are a few American authors who choose to set their mysteries in England, but I didn't know that about this author. Mysteries set in the USA tend to have a different and grittier feeling that doesn't always appeal. That's not true about all of them, but there is definitely a sub-genre like that.
Great sounding novels...murder mysteries, I mean. What fun to be Italian! I don't think I've ever read an Italian mystery. Perhaps this year!
Jeff Siger, an American, writes great mysteries set in Greece -- specifically, on the Greek island of Mykonos. They're very popular with Greek readers, so he must be doing something right. He lives on Mykonos part of each year.
I enjoy these two series !
(And I am so fond of Italy that I have been studying Italian since several years )
MissYves
Oh, well done, Miss Yves!
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