A Fine and Private Place

As Sandro gets to grips with the dispiriting realities of life as a private detective, touting for business among old contacts and following errant teenagers, an old case comes back to haunt him...

As Sandro Cellini gets to grips with the dispiriting realities of life as a private detective, touting for business among old contacts and following errant teenagers, an old case comes back to haunt him...

Once the subject of a routine investigation back in Sandro's early days as an investigator, Loni Meadows - the glamorous, charming and ruthless director of an artistic Trust based in a castle in the hills outside Florence - is found dead in circumstances Sandro cannot convince himself are accidental. However inconvenient his suspicions might be, both to Sandro - whose marriage appears to be disintegrating - and to Meadows's erstwhile employers at the Trust, he presses ahead with the case. And as Sandro attempts to uncover the truth of Loni Meadows's violent and lonely death, he finds himself drawn into the lives of the castle's highly strung community and the closed world they inhabit in the Casentino's isolated hills.



CHRISTOBEL KENT's previous books include

A Time of Mourning,

A Party in San Niccolo, Late Season and

A Florentine Revenge. She lives near Cambridge with her husband and five children.



Death, espresso, and political manoeuvering... An ex-cop plying his trade outside the boundaries of normal Italian police procedure. Brooding Italian noir.



Like Dibden's Zen, Cellini is a reluctant inquirer... fascism, the mafia and revolving-door post-war governments have left many secrets that score dark marks on the surface of daily life. Taut and thoughtful mystery that draws on the contrast between location... and the savage passions and politics that lie underneath.



Dark, gloomy and often sinister... An intelligent and convincing thriller with fleshed-out characters you want to meet again.



Bridging the gap left by Michael Dibdin... Suspense, atmosphere, and the architectural beauty of Florence... Fantastic.



Thoughtful, lugubrious, adorable Florentine Sandro Cellini has become my comfort-detective of choice... He make me almost long for a cold so I can go to bed and read.