A Time of Mourning

Introducing Sandro Cellini, ex-cop and private detective. Florence''s answer to Donna Leon''s Guido Brunetti.

''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.'' -- Louisa Young

When a young English girl goes missing from among Florence''s hard-drinking, high-living community of foreign art students, at first ex-policeman, good husband and newly private detective Sandro Cellini is unwilling to see any connection with his investigation of the suicide of an elderly Jewish architect.

But as he looks more closely into the circumstances of Claudio Gentileschi''s death the connections between the cases multiply, and Sandro''s first case turns out to be darker and more complex than he could have imagined...