What a pleasure to ride through an Italian crime novel in the hands of a gifted storyteller! Camilla Trinchieri's new addition to the escapades and investigations of widower Nico Doyle, an appreciative American transplant to Tuscany, weaves among the complications of life in the town of Gravigna, when an 80-year-old bartender is murdered and the loves and lusts of several families must be explored to get to the motive of the crime.
Nico is not exactly an amateur sleuth—he worked for the New York Police Department in America, but he has left that career behind and has no official standing in his adopted land. Yet his good friend the local maresciallo (officer) of the carabinieri, Perillo, depends on Nico to add more professional expertise and experience to the local investigation.
Whether the crime was motivated by love, money, lust, or revenge, Nico is drawn to finding justice for the old man and the people who've loved him, including the lovely Laura Benati, the sorrow-haunted manager of the hotel where the bartender worked for half his life. Under Nico's efforts is a sorrow of his own: He's turned away a woman he's come to love in the town, because he hasn't resolved his issues about his own dead wife and whether he can love again fully. This mystery of life becomes as significant as the one of death he's digging into.
In the long run, rather than forensics, it's Nico's passion for this place and his friends that leads him through the tangled relationships and motivations. His friend Luciana begs Nico to talk to her husband:
"He knows something about the murder," Luciana said. "Ever since we heard about it on the local news last night, he's been odd, fidgety. Usually, he's so quiet I can't even tell he's in the room. After the news, he was picking up things, putting them down again, changing channels every minute. Going to the kitchen, coming back empty-handed. I kept asking him to talk to me. He yelled at me. Nico, he has never yelled at me. The man has always had the patience of a saint. Talk to him. He trusts you."
Smoothly written by a bilingual author and braided with neatly woven clues and red herrings, Murder on the Vine is a delightful transport into community and culture, and provides just enough risk to make the final exposure and wrap-up highly satisfying to all—even to Nico's dog OneWag.
Series readers will appreciate meeting their old friends again; newcomers to Trinchieri's mysteries can slide right into the novel and can catch up on the earlier ones in the series afterward. Published by Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press, and just released, in time for enjoyable armchair travel.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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