Tod im Herbst (Death in Autumn) Book

First the drawbacks, mostly minor but nonetheless irritating. Given that the author, Magdalen Nabb, has authored ten other detective mysteries and that Soho Press (well-established New York crime fiction house) published it, you wouldn't expect missing commas and other such annoyances (shift of speaker without a clear indication of which character was now speaking). I was also struck by the apparent confusion over the central protagonist. "Death in Autumn" is billed as a Marshal Guarnaccia mystery, and though the man is a major police investigator, the main one is Captain Maestrangelo of the Florentine carabinieri, with Guarnaccia getting second billing, which I put down to the publisher's marketing department. Apparently the Marshal became a central character for the author after this story, in which he plays a large, though not central role. Fortunately, these annoyances were infrequent enough to be only minor irritations.

That said, if you like your mysteries with the truth, and surprises, coming out in the last ten pages, this is for you. There are plenty of clues along the way (clues that seem much clearer in retrospect) and enough surprises to make for a satisfying conclusion to the mystery. The ending of the story, however, makes one question the nature of evil and the likelihood of justice. A rather good accomplishment in 158 pages.