Not Flying Yet? Visit Italy with Camilla Trinchieri

Readers who know me well will understand the siren song of a novel that’s dubbed “A Tuscan Mystery, Book 1.” I salivate as if a steaming bowl of ribollita had been set before me accompanied by the house red and a warm loaf of crusty bread. Camilla Trinchieri https://www.camillatrinchieri.com/ serves up Tuscan recipes galore along with the dead bodies in this first book in her new series.

 “Murder in Chianti” has everything you want in good mystery, a vibrant sense of place, a couple of sympathetic carabinieri open to the help of a retired American police detective, a victim everyone loved to hate, and a plethora of red herrings. (I didn’t guess who the culprit was until he confessed!) Set in Gravigna, a fictional village in the wine-soaked region of Chianti, not too far south of Firenze, the people are just what you’ve experienced if you’ve ever stayed in an Italian village, open, friendly, and accepting of the American newcomer Nico Doyle who buried his wife Rita in the family plot and stayed on to feel closer to her.

He keeps his police creds quiet, helps in the family’s restaurant, and renovates a cottage that overlooks a vineyard where his landlord Aldo harvests and bottles cases of wine and olive oil. This idyll is shattered early one morning when a single gunshot interrupts his musings over coffee on his patio. Following the frantic yips of an animal, thinking someone got a head start on the boar hunting season, Nico discovers a bloody dog and a body that looks just as horrific as anything he’d seen back in his homicide days in the states.

Salvatore Perillo, the local chief of police, has done his homework and is familiar with Nico’s NYPD background. Only having ever faced one murder in his long career in Gravigna, Perillo can use all the help he can get but must woo Nico with plenty of whiskey, wine, and food to get him on board with the investigation. Once a cop, always a cop, and soon Nico is in the thick of it along with Perillo’s new young computer guru and second in command, Daniele.

These three break the mold of so many novels by actually working well together and with the public. There’s no tasering of suspects, no guns drawn, no illegal pressure on witnesses, just good, smart policing that earns them the respect of the villagers and of us, the readers. Spending time with them is a pleasure and Trinchieri creates many delightful secondary characters as well. The whole book just feels so real and authentic. If you’ve loved Donna Leon’s Venetian series, then you must give this a look.

 Imagine how happy I was to learn that Trinchieri’s second in the series will be out in a few days. “The Bitter Taste of Murder” is the name. Watch for it!