Synopsis/blurb……
A dark murder mystery
with strong elements of Gothic horror, from the father of the Italian 'giallo'
crime genre, featuring Inspector De Vincenzi
The shady Hotel of
the Three Roses is home to an assortment of drunks and degenerates. Inspector
De Vincenzi receives an anonymous letter, warning him of an imminent outrage at
the guest house, and shortly after a macabre discovery is made - a body is found
hanging in the hotel's stairwell. As De Vincenzi investigates, more deaths
follow, until he finally uncovers a gothic and grotesque story linking the
Three Rose's unhappy residents to each other.
This intensely
dramatic mystery from the father of the Italian crime novel, Augusto de
Angelis, features his most famous creation - Inspector De Vincenzi.
Augusto De Angelis
(1888-1944) was an Italian novelist and journalist, most famous for his series
of detective novels featuring Commissario Carlo De Vincenzi. His cultured
protagonist was enormously popular in Italy, but the Fascist government of the
time considered him an enemy, and during the Second World War he was imprisoned
by the authorities. Shortly after his release he was beaten up by a Fascist
activist and died from his injuries.
Read and enjoyed back in June, but looking back a month or
so on, I can’t actually recall from memory who the murderer was. All of which
kind of leads me to conclude that it wasn’t especially memorable or striking.
Nothing wrong with that of course – I don’t expect every book I read to blow me
away.
We have a mid-1930s Italian murder mystery. Inspector De
Vincenzi is summoned to the Hotel of the Three Roses by virtue of an unsigned
letter warning of despicable events about to occur. On arrival at the hotel,
our first body has been discovered – hanging by a rope in a top floor
stairwell, but definitely not a suicide.
De Vincenzi attempts to put the hotel under lockdown as he
interviews all the guests and staff. Further new arrivals complicate things, as
does another couple of murders as the investigation is in progress.
Our inspector’s enquiries discover that several of the
guests have been summoned to the hotel for the reading of Major Harry Alton’s
will. Alton had been involved in the Boer Conflict in South Africa during the
1880s and subsequent business in Australia – supplying the Germans with submarines
during the First World War.
Secrets, blackmail, dark deeds on the Dark Continent,
diamonds, porcelain dolls, greed, a will reading, a boozy lawyer, a
disinherited wife, a son born out of wedlock, a love-struck hunchback employee,
a few feckless gamblers, revenge, a disturbed mind, another anonymous letter, a
daughter of a deceased business partner, a sleeping policeman, a red herring or
two and a competent inspector – though he didn’t manage to prevent a couple of
murders whilst on the scene!
So overall and after re-reading the last couple of chapters……
an interesting enough mystery with a decent plot, satisfactorily resolved. I
think I read it more as an impartial observer, as opposed to a reader with an
emotional investment in the characters and therefore the outcome.
3.5 from 5
I have another Inspector
De Vincenzi book to read – The
Murdered Banker – also courtesy of the publisher, Pushkin Vertigo. I’ll be interested in seeing if the author can
generate some enthusiasm for the characters and outcome as opposed to merely
providing a puzzle which needs solving.
It does sound like an interesting premise for a murder mystery, Col. Glad you liked it well enough.
ReplyDeleteMargot - enjoyable enough, but far from amazing, which is okay as not everything is going to rock me.
DeleteI think my problem with the older mystery is a sense of disconnection from place and people which leaves me ambivalent to the outcome. I find more contemporary books easier to relate to.
Col, if it weren't for the period Augusto De Angelis wrote this particular book, I'd have thought it had shades of an Agatha Christie. But they were contemporary writers.
ReplyDeletePrashant, I haven't read Christie since I was a schoolboy so can't say for certain if there's a resemblance between the styles...possibly.
DeleteI'm interested in reading more of the "vintage/forgotten" European crime fiction which the publisher is bringing to a new audience; though I doubt it will ever replace "my normal" type of reading!
Col, I have read about some good crime fiction coming out of Italy, though I haven't read any.
DeleteCarlo Lucarelli, Massimo Carlotto, Gianrico Carofiglio, Niccolo Ammaniti.....a few modern day Italian crime fiction authors that are in the tubs - maybe worth looking up.
DeleteI really want to get hold of this one -- of all the Pushkin Vertigo titles I've seen reviewed, in fact.
ReplyDeleteProbably a bit more your thing than mine, I'm unsure if they are available in the US.
DeleteSometimes I have problems remembering who did what in mysteries I have read, but then I am a lot older than you, Col. That is the problem with waiting so long to review books, which happens a lot to me. Maybe I will give this a try if I run into it at a reasonable price.
ReplyDeleteI did buy (and read) Vertigo put out by the same publisher, since I enjoyed the movie and wanted to see how they compared.
I sometimes have problems remembering what I ate yesterday for dinner, let alone books I read 4 weeks ago! I think I find it harder to remember characters in translated books also.The names don't stay with me so readily.
DeleteI have similar problems with translated books. On a related note, when Glen and I both read The Guards by Ken Bruen at about the same time, neither one of us could remember the plot very well right after reading it, but we did know that we liked the book very much.
DeleteI read The Guards myself and enjoyed it, but I couldn't tell you much about it, apart from the opening.
DeleteCount me in with you and Tracy. Sometimes I re-read an old blogpost of my own, and I mention some clever plot aspect or clue in the book in question, and I have no idea what I was talking about. Meanwhile, I like the idea of an Italian crime book of that era, but probably won't get to it.
ReplyDeleteHaha, not just the two of us then.
Delete