Review by Booklist Review
The latest in de Giovanni's long-running Commissario Ricciardi series finds the troubled Neapolitan inspector even more melancholy than usual. That's partially due to the season--the week after Christmas, when all of Naples prepares for lavish New Year's celebrations, but Ricciardi typically broods--and there's also his reluctance to openly declare his love for Enrica Columbo. What Ricciardi needs is a murder to distract him, and he gets a doozy: every night aging actor Michelangelo Gelmi shoots his beloved wife in the musical revue in which the couple is starring, but this time there's a live bullet in the chamber. Open and shut, right? Not so fast. Gelmi claims he didn't do it intentionally, even though he swears the gun was never out of his sight, and Ricciardi wants to believe him. De Giovanni is guilty of overstuffing the narrative with sometimes-confusing subplots, though they're all intriguing enough on their own, but it's Ricciardi's inner turmoil and the finely etched atmosphere--Naples is enveloped in surreal fog, mirroring Ricciardi's inability to see clearly--that grips the reader. The knockout ending doesn't hurt, either.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in 1930s Italy, De Giovanni's elegant 10th novel featuring Neapolitan Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi (after 2018's Nameless Serenade) opens with a tantalizing prologue in which an unknown narrator confesses to shooting Ricciardi. Flash back to the period between Christmas and New Year's Eve, when Ricciardi is called to the Teatro Splendor. During the finale of a popular musical revue, singer and film actor Michelangelo Gelmi shot his beautiful and even more famous wife, Fedora Marra. Gelmi swears that, as with every previous performance, he had loaded the gun with blanks. Fedora's death is the talk of the city, and Ricciardi is urged to close the case immediately; after all, every member of the audience saw Gelmi fire the fatal shot. Ricciardi isn't convinced of the actor's guilt and delves deeper. The chaste romance between Ricciardi and his true love, Enrica Colombo, who has rejected the marriage proposal of "a suave and captivating German officer," provides welcome counterpoint to the murder investigation--which eventually ties in with Ricciardi's shooting, which, no surprise, he survives. De Giovanni should win new fans with this one. (Jan.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Commissario Ricciardi faces murder among a theatrical troupe whose members are just as devious as he is. No one, least of all himself, disputes the fact that fading theater star Michelangelo Gelmi ended the second evening show of the revue at the Teatro Splendor by shooting his co-star and wife, Fedora Marra. This time, however, the beloved star didn't rise for her curtain call because someone had substituted live ammunition for the blanks with which Gelmi had shot her repeatedly in the run-up to Christmas 1933. Gelmi swears he never would have killed the love of his life intentionally; Erminia Pacelli, the dresser for the Teatro Splendor, insists that she was stationed outside the door of Gelmi's dressing room before the performance began and saw no one enter. It's up to Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi and his sidekick, Brigadier Raffaele Maione, a conscientious detective but a terrible driver, to sort out the case. Readers who know more than they do may be distracted by the problems faced by Livia Vezzi, a widow who's under pressure to get very, very close to Maj. Manfred von Brauchitsch, a visiting German officer whose advances Enrica Colombo has rejected because she's in love with Ricciardi, and by Lina Scuotto, a prostitute who's been beaten nearly to death by someone whose identity nearly everyone her favorite client, medical examiner Dr. Bruno Modo, talks to seems to know but won't reveal. Ricciardi's superior, who can't see why he hasn't arrested Gelmi, keeps him on a short leash. Fortunately, as Maione reflects, there's still time to investigate because "nobody's going to kill anyone between Christmas and New Year's Day." Even fans of the series are likely to be surprised when the curtain finally falls. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
