Innocent [Paperback]

Magdalen Nabb's 13th Marshal Guarnaccia novel THE INNOCENT is the latest episode in her venerable crime series that has been going strong for over two decades. Her two leading characters are her persistent carabinieri NCO, Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia, and her beloved adopted city, Florence.

The story begins with the discovery of a women's body in an out-of-the-way pool in the Boboli Gardens, the expansive park next to the Pitti Palace. This is literally in the good Marshal's back yard since his carabinieri offices and barracks are in a wing of the Pitti Palace. This crime has the usual challenges--identify the victim; determine whether the death was accidental or murder; identify possible motives; look for suspects; and find and arrest the killer.

When you read one of Ms. Nabb's novels, you also embark on a wonderful tour of Florence. She always gives special emphasis to the seasons--this one takes place in springtime, late May-early June. The locale is an artisan's quarter in a tiny piazza without a name. This tiny square was formed at the end of World War II, when the retreating German army bombed all the approaches to the Ponte Vecchio, thus making it unnecessary to destroy the historic bridge. Clues lead Guarnaccia to this artisan's quarter where we get wonderful insights into the plight of these artisans and the sustainability of their crafts in the 21st century. We get to know the shoemaker, the furniture restorer, and the local restaurant owner who caters to the workers instead of the tourists. Their apprentices are no longer the young upwardly mobile Italians, but foreigners from as far away as Japan.

Ms. Nabb is unique in featuring the carabinieri in her books--and not the state police favored by her colleagues like Donna Leon and Michael Dibdin. Unlike Commissario Guido Brunetti or Inspector Aurelio Zen, Marshal Guarnaccia has a close day-to-day relationship with the people in his neighborhood jurisdiction. So when a murder occurs, he has already established a sense of trust with them, and this always helps in the solution of the crime. In this book, we get an insight into Guarnaccia's relationship with the young carabinieri recruits he commands; and his relationship with his two teenage sons. Typically he feels inadequate in both tasks!

This wonderful novel is a social commentary on modern day Italy as well as an entertaining crime story.

Marshall Guarnaccia is one of the best detectives in the lexicon of psychological mysteries, and the series is one of constant and pure pleasure. Beautifully written, the pace is slower as author Nabb demonstrates both the charms and foibles of her adopted city. The Marshall is not at all 'showy'. He is a middle aged, married man who underestimates himself. He is a practical man who appears a bit phlegmatic, but has enormous sympathy with people, whether they be his subordinates, family or suspects. His detection methods are measured and steady: flashy gunbattles rarely arise in any of the novels. The Marshall finds the murder by both steadily following the clues (which are fair to the reader) and through his understanding of the failings of the heart and character of his people. The criticism that Nabb is merely a tourist board member for Florence is not justified. Florence sells itself and Nabb is writing for an English speaking audience that is, presumably, not familiar with her adopted city and its undeniable charms. Like Donna Leon and her Venetian detective (Buonetti? sp?), the city is a major character. Like both of the real cities, the fictional Florence (and Venice!) are seductive. This is the best sort of armchair travel.

What makes a good mystery? I have several criteria. The underlying tale has to be plausible, and Nabb never cheats on that score. Nor does she use the terribly obvious red herrings that other writers can clutter up a plot with. Multiple suspects arise in the course of determining if the lover, the employer, the friend or the family of the victim have both the passion and the motive for the crime, and these arise and are eliminated as a seemingly natural occurrence. In Florence, each neighborhood is its own 'village' where everyone knows each other (for good or ill), and the interrelationships make psychological sense. She uses this theme especially well in the Marshall and The Madwoman, but it exists in The Innocent too. She goes further in exploring the family life and concerns of the Marshall in The Innocent which may appeal more to readers of the preceding books in the series, but for the faithful, it is a pleasure. But each book does stand on its own and is a worthy read.

A really good mystery has the same requirements as any other writing. Nabb is a master of language, pacing, and evoking a compelling atmosphere. The writing itself is a pleasure and I think I would enjoy reading anything the woman wrote, from books to laundry lists. I am extremely, selfishly sorry that the author died: I could happily read many more stories of the Marshall and his world, his steady pace through his own uncertainties, and his understanding that, at the base of all human action is motive. I enthusiastically recommend this book and the entire series. They are treasures.

Marshal Guarnaccia is a pleasantly complex Sicilian working in Florence as an investigator. He's a father and husband who feels like an outsider in Florence. He's a man aware of his own childhood issues even as he helplessly watches his sons grow into men, men who were once children he remembers deeply loving and fiercely protecting. He's also an overweight man, but he doesn't feel at all that he ought to be called fat. His wife is his backbone and she feeds him well.

The novel opens with the false and showy line "...even if he'd known what was going to happen, the marshal would have found it impossible to believe at that moment," but it takes almost 30 pages before what was "going to happen" does happen, and the marshal never once finds what happens impossible. The opening line is a suspiciously empty hook, serving only to pull the reader into marshal's discovery of a faceless dead woman's body.

The first thirty to forty pages are also full of distracting, mostly irrelevant and humorous detours where Marshal walks along a path that allows him to greet the shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and squabbling amorists in the neighborhood such that the reader feels too much like a tourist in a travel brochure being invited to witness the local color, that is, the ordinary people -- and to smell the garlic as well. A native writer of Florence or any other city in Italy would not have written such touristic and bromidic passages at the start of a novel set in Italy. Such a writer would have been more suggestive or even more cryptic -- and more endearing for being such. This reader felt that the author was overconfident that her readers would find these diverting passages entertaining or amusing. Coupled with a very false opening hook, these passages were challengingly irritating.

By the middle of the novel, all the Italianate distractions disappear and the real work of detection begins. This section is focused, direct, and a solid integrated piece of clue-gathering, research, and interviews. The pace, however, is casual, meandering and slow such that it is easily put-down-able.

When the true criminal is discovered, it is something of an anti-climax. No dramatic prelude is developed before it happens and at the peak of disclosure, the reader learns that the culprit feels fairly confident he will escape punishment in the end, which, as it happens, turns out to be actually the case.

The squabbling amorists we are introduced to at the beginning of the novel finally do resolve their disputes at the end and Marshal and his family live warmly, cozily, and tightly ever after.

Any comparisons here to George Simenon's novels are strictly imaginary.

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