Fans of the international crime novel are mourning the passing of three significant writers in the genre.
Magdalen Nabb was the author of the Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia novels, which are set in modern day Florence, although they often refer back to the recent or distant past and are mostly based on real crimes committed in the city.
A recent piece about her death in Booklist magazine says “Over the 14 Guarnaccia novels, Nabb developed her hero into a working-man’s Maigret, a bit of a plodder, yes, but hypersensitive to human nuance and to the sometimes overwhelming sadness that lurks beneath the surface of daily life.”
Nabb would have been pleased at this comparison, for, as her website biography relates, “Having been a fan of Georges Simenon’s novels for as long as she could remember, she was astonished and overjoyed when Simenon wrote to congratulate her on her first novel. Their correspondence continued until his death and, until then, the first copy of each book went to him. His presence is very much missed but in difficult moments she could still get advice from him by browsing through his books and his letters.”
Another author of what has been called the “renaissance of Italian crime fiction,” Michael Dibdin,
gave us Aurelio Zen, one of the quirkiest detectives in all of crime fiction.
Throughout the 11 titles in the series he is constantly appalled by the savagery of his fellow countrymen and entangled in the horrors of Italian bureaucracy, forever bending the rules to achieve results, much to the annoyance of his superiors.
Each title is set in a different region of Italy, starting in the beautiful medieval city of Perugia.
If you are a Michael Kitchen (Foyle’s War) fan, I highly recommend his reading of Dibdin’s Blood Rain and A Long Finish.
The late Batya Gur’s groundbreaking Chief Inspector Michael Ohayon mysteries took us across the Mediterranean to Jerusalem.
The 5th and final title in the series, Bethlehem Road Murder, got a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it an “outstanding police procedural” that “can hold its own with the best work of P.D. James.”
The brooding Ohayon is a restrained and understated figure who has often been called the Israeli Adam Dalgleish.
Visit our list of international detectives if you are shopping for a new series to read, and don’t forget to check Stop, You’re Killing Me! for a list of the series titles in their order of publication.