Author(s): Christobel Kent

Crime Thriller Mystery

Florence is deserted. The sluggish Arno and the Ponte Vecchio shimmer in the summer haze. A corpse lies on the roadside, waiting for discovery...This is a new Sandro Cellini mystery. Every August, Florence shimmers in the summer heat. But this year the heatwave is fiercer than usual, and the city's inhabitants have fled to the cool of the hills and beaches of the surrounding countryside. But former policeman turned private detective Sandro Cellini will not be joining them, and nor will the manager of a branch of a small, failing provincial bank. Sandro has a case: a man who seems to have vanished into thin air leaving his pregnant wife behind him. But the bank manager lies amidst the shrubbery of a busy roundabout, his corpse bloating in the humid air. Meanwhile, bank-teller Roxana Delfino is both worried by her mother's state of mind - is her memory failing? Has she imagined an intruder onto their property, and puzzled by the disappearance of one her regular clients? And just what does the old porn cinema near Roxana's bank have to do with these three separate mysteries?
As all Florence sweats it out, Sandro, his assistant Guili, wife Luisa and former police partner Pietro attempt as best they can to grapple with the case and the complications it throws up along the way. And when the weather finally breaks, it brings with it a shocking revelation...This title is suitable for readers of Michael Dibdin's "Aurelio Zen Mysteries", "Donna Leon" and "Tobias Jones".