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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Dead Season: A Sandro Cellini Mystery by Christobel Kent (view source)
Revision as of 14:03, 1 May 2012
, 14:03, 1 May 2012no edit summary
One of the tellers at the Bank is stuck in the city, too. Business is quiet but Roxana is worried about the disappearance of a regular customer - well, she is when she isn't worrying about the state of mind of her elderly mother. Then it all gets rather complicated.
[[A Fine and Private Place (Sandro Cellini) by Christobel Kent|A Fine and Private Place]] was my introduction to Sandro Cellini and I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Both stories have a very steady start - although on this occasion it served to point up - to exaggerate that which is beyond exaggeration - the heat and sultry atmosphere of Florence in August. The other factor is the presence of a young woman (in addition to his assistant, Giuli) who assists Cellini in his investigations. We've not met the woman in an early earlier book and there's no sense that we're ever going to encounter her again. It's not a ''problem'' but it is something you ''notice'', particularly because Christobel Kent is more accomplished with her female characters than the males. Cellini's wife, Luisa, is all but the star of the show and his assistant, Giuli, ex druggy, ex hooker, comes off the page, er, fully clothed.
The plot is good. I lost count of the number of occasions on which I'd worked out what was going to happen and then had to revise my ideas within a few pages. I had an inkling of who would prove to be the villain of the piece - mainly because I'd had just about everyone chalked in at some point, so it was relatively easy to feel that I'd been right. The test of a good plot is that when you get to the end you're surprised that you didn't get to the answer sooner because everything hangs together so well now that you know what to look for. ''The Dead Season'' passes with flying colours.
