Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site(Thrillers set in Italy)

	Fiction Books set in Italy	Books Rome Mystery Mysteries Non-fiction

	Introduction Espionage Books set in Italy Suspense / Novels set in Italy Crime Novels set in Italy Introduction The books featured here are thrillers outside the detective-mystery genre, that means espionage and suspense. They're all set in Italy for most of the story. Each book is *linked via a click on the book cover, to Amazon.com's page for the book. There you can find excerpts, sometimes links to the first chapter, back cover text, reader comments, reviews, and prices for new and used copies. Many of these books are available as paperbacks*, so be sure to check before deciding one's too expensive.

Espionage Books set in Italy (Also see my Mysteries page)
Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler Here's a classic by the master spy-writer Eric Ambler. From a Reader's Review: It's the late 1930's and the European continent is poised on the brink of war. British engineer Nicholas Marlow accepts a position in the Milan office of a machine tool manufacturing company known as Spartacus. Since Spartacus' products are used in the production of munitions, Marlow has access to information of value to those engaged in espionage. A bit naive, Marlow is rather easily sucked into the cloak and dagger intrigue endemic to that time and place and rather unfortunately incurs the wrath of Mussolini's secret police. Cause for Alarm is an engaging spy novel that has a smooth narrative flow. Moreover, Ambler's detailed knowledge of his subject matter is quite apparent. A solid 4 stars for this early contribution to the genre. Well worth reading.
The Broker by John Grisham From Publishers Weekly: "...what happens to ruined D.C. powerbroker Joel Blackman, 52, when he's suddenly released from federal prison after six years. ... Many want him dead—the Saudis, the Israelis, especially the Chinese—because of his role in trying to sell a global satellite spy system that would alter the world's balance of power; that was what got Joel imprisoned, and the CIA hopes that whoever kills him will clue them in to who may have access to the satellites. Joel is relocated to Bologna..." John Grisham has since set a second novel in Italy.
Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz From School Library Journal: "Grade 7-10–Alex Rider, the 14-year-old spy and adventurer from Stormbreaker (2001), Point Blank (2002), Skeleton Key (2003), and Eagle Strike (2004, all Philomel), is back. While vacationing in Italy, he is recruited by the deadliest terrorist organization in the world, Scorpia..."
Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child From School Library Journal: "As FBI Special Agent Pendergast immerses himself in the investigation of an art critic's bizarre murder, he conjures up clues pointing to the Devil as the culprit. After several killings in the same ghastly manner, similar clues are found. Pendergast teams up with Police Officer Vincent D'Agosta, with whom he had worked in The Relic (St. Martin's, 1996), and they begin a lengthy, intense, and time-driven search for the murderer..."
Waking Raphael by Leslie Forbes From Booklist: "Forbes' latest departs from India, the setting of her previous literary thrillers--Bombay Ice (1998) and Fish, Blood and Bone (2001)--and moves to idyllic Urbino, Italy, birthplace of Renaissance painter Raphael. Deftly exploring connections between art, religion, and politics, Forbes layers her mystery with lush imagery and palpable human drama. When the Raphael painting that she is commissioned to work on is attacked..."
Day of Confession by Allan Folsom From Amazon.com: "This massive thriller pits a scheming prince of the Church who believes he was once Alexander the Great against the Addison brothers--Harry, a Hollywood lawyer, and Danny, a Vatican priest. It seems that Danny had the bad luck to hear another cardinal's confession outlining a heinous plot to poison China's water supply in order to win the Vatican bankers a multi-billion-dollar contract to rebuild it..."
Suspense / Novels set in Italy
The Aspern Papers by Henry James Just for fun, I'm including the Henry James novella set in decaying Venice. It was made into a sanitized B/W film years back, but the original, dark story is wonderful. From a Reader Review: The Aspern Papers is a brilliant story that concentrates everything great about Henry James in one brisk addictive read. James had such a deep feeling for the ornate social niceties of his day that he was able to poke fun of them while still respecting their essential decency--he seemed to understand the greed and brutality they kept in check. Our unnamed narrator's quest to outfox a great poet's elderly mistress and lay ahold of her onetime lover's papers unfolds in a languid world of gondolas, decaying Venetian palazzos, hot evenings in overgrown gardens, and above all a comfortable leisure that allows the smallest social gestures to take on earth-shaking significance. James had an uncanny ability to make that world come alive, bringing you into its subtleties and rites, while at the same time taking you behind the elegant façade to expose the aggression, cupidity, and naked power politics that lurk just beneath the impeccable manners. Our narrator wants the papers; the mistress wants money for her niece, and the niece ... well, order this book and read on to find out. You won't be disappointed--it's one of James's best.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith From Amazon.com: One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion. Like Humbert Humbert, Tom Ripley seduces readers into empathizing with him even as his actions defy all moral standards. The novel begins with a play on James's The Ambassadors. Tom Ripley is chosen by the wealthy Herbert Greenleaf to retrieve Greenleaf's son, Dickie, from his overlong sojourn in Italy. Dickie, it seems, is held captive both by the Mediterranean climate and the attractions of his female companion, but Mr. Greenleaf needs him back in New York to help with the family business. With an allowance and a new purpose, Tom leaves behind his dismal city apartment to begin his career as a return escort. But Tom, too, is captivated by Italy. He is also taken with the life and looks of Dickie Greenleaf. He insinuates himself into Dickie's world and soon finds that his passion for a lifestyle of wealth and sophistication transcends moral compunction. Tom will become Dickie Greenleaf--at all costs. Unlike many modernist experiments, The Talented Mr. Ripley is eminently readable and is driven by a gripping chase narrative that chronicles each of Tom's calculated maneuvers of self-preservation. Highsmith was in peak form with this novel, and her ability to enter the mind of a sociopath and view the world through his disturbingly amoral eyes is a model that has spawned such latter-day serial killers as Hannibal Lecter.
The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr This is a narrative non-fiction, which is a way of saying a novelized true story. That's why I've put it here under the suspense novels. It's about the search for a lost Caravaggio painting, and covers art history and restoration, as well as the eccentrics who search for lost paintings. From The Economist: "Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read."
Alibi by Joseph Kanon From Booklist: "Adam Miller, fresh from a stint as a war crimes investigator in Frankfurt, arrives in Vienna to visit his globe-trotting mother, who is holding tenuously to the remains of her fortune and embarking on an autumnal romance with a Venetian doctor whose wartime associations with the Nazis remain troubling if obscure. Miller begins a tumultuous romance with a Jewish woman whose own wartime experience has left her with deep psychic wounds. Soon enough the past can no longer remain hidden..."
A Season for the Dead by David Hewson From Publishers Weekly: "...Hewson presents the first in a line of thrillers set in Italy and features detective Nic Costa and an ensemble cast drawn from the ranks of the Rome state police. University professor Sara Farnese is at her desk in the Reading Room of the Vatican Library perusing a 10th-century copy of Apicius's first-century cookbook De Re Coquinaria when former lover and fellow university professor Stefano Rinaldi careens into the room..." More Nic Costa books:
Eminence by Morris West From Amazon.com: "Eminence is a brisk thriller and simultaneously a very relevant examination of the byzantine Vatican City; but the ultimate pleasure of the book, as with the best of West's writings, derives from his complex and very human portrait of a modern man of the cloth." If you don't know Morris West's work, try his classic: The Shoes of the Fisherman, and The Devil's Advocate.
A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth From Booklist: "Those in the Italian village where he currently lives call him Sr. Farfalle--Mr. Butterfly--but he never reveals his real name. He has few friends, only business contacts. He is constantly on the move and always watching his back. He considers himself an artisan, not for the butterflies he paints as his cover but for the guns he creates for cunning assassins." From Publishers Weekly: "With first-rate characters and a gradual buildup of suspense, Booth constructs his most focused, tightly written novel to date, reminiscent of William Trevor's classic Felicia's Journey and the late Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels."
The Clowns of God by Morris West From the Book Description: "What would happen, if the members of the Roman Curia discovered that the Pope was about to publicly state that he had received a private revelation that the world was about to end? Pope Gregory XVII claims to have received a private revelation of the end of the world - an apocalypse coming not in some distant future but at any moment. Is he a madman, as his cardinals suspect, a mystic, or a fanatic grasping for an unholy power?" Rave reader reviews for this book.
Crime Novels Set in Italy (See also my Mysteries page)
Kill Her Again by Albert A. Bell, Jr. From Amazon.com: Corie Foster, a travel writer, and professor Michael Herrington meet while staying in a small town in Italy and observing an archaeological excavation. But someone is following Corie, who seems to bear a striking resemblance to the late wife of a wealthy Italian senator. When two women on the excavation team are murdered, Michael and Corie are certain that Corie is the real target. As their investigation unfolds, it seems to hinge on what they can find out about the senator's wife. As they work together, Michael and Corie are drawn closer. But does Corie have her own reasons for coming to Italy? Is she who she appears to be?
From a reader's comments: "One summer in Italy, two women find themselves being waved through roadblocks just because it never occurs to the police that women could be the criminals they seek. One says to the other, "any four women could rob the bank of Italy and get away with it while the police searched for four men." As this joke evolves first into an idea for a screenplay and then, unexpectedly, into the plans for a daring crime, a large cast of characters living in a Tuscan village move into action. Well-written, nicely paced, and full of laugh-out-loud passages."
Fire on Mount Maggiore by John Parras From a Book Review: "Based on events in the author's life while fighting forest fires in Italy, Fire On Mount Maggiore is a novel about a firefighter plagued with survivor's guilt after a terrible blaze slaughters five men in his brigade. Caught amid rumors and suspicions of flawed firefighting operations, corruption in the management of state lands, serial arson, and influence of the criminal underworld, he embarks upon an exploration into the conspiracy."