The Bone Keepers (Mythmakers Trilogy) by James LePore and Carlos Davis

The Bone Keepers is book three in a historical conspiracy thriller trilogy.  There are no cliffhangers, so one can read each book and get a very satisfying story with each one, independent of the others.  Like many books in this genre, sometimes called the "Dan Brown" genre, the Catholic church plays a central role, as do long held secrets.

The story moves through time to recount the backstory to the main story that unfolds in and around Rome, Italy, in the year 1943.  The reader visits Judea in AD 13 and 60, Italy in the 1930s and then the 1950s, Galilee in the year 33, and Oxford, England, in 1943.  England is where the searchers of the secrets, two British spies, are recruited for their assignment.  In this trilogy, the spies are fictionalized versions of real people:  spies and later authors Ian Fleming and Tolkien.

Tolkien

The books in The Mythmakers Trilogy are:

1. No Dawn for Men
2. God's Formula
3. The Bone Keepers

Who was a bone keeper?  The reader learns that a bone keeper in the ancient world was someone who arranged a burial, then later collected the deceased's bones and put them in an ossuary, a bone box, inscribed with the person's name and family name.  The ossuary was then usually stored by the family.  I'm not giving anything away that isn't in the book's spoiler description, when I can say that the bone keepers of the title, are hereditary keepers of the bones of the Christ.

Yes, Christ rose from the dead, and doubting Thomas felt the proof that resurrected Jesus included his bones.  And the women by the tomb of Christ, that was borrowed from Joseph of Aramathea, attested to the fact that the resurrected Christ left nothing behind in the tomb.  That means that the religious grounding of the book could be considered blasphemy by some, or just a bit weak by others.  Most readers of these books, however, read them with a wink and a nod, forgiving those things in the name of entertainment.

Ian Fleming

The authors have done their research on the real people who are the inspiration for their fictionalized spies, Tolkien and Fleming.  They use the truth to bring entertaining verisimilitude to the fiction.  They also use the men's fiction to add familiar elements to The Bone Keepers relating to the two men.

There are sexual scenes in the book, which is for adult readers.  The female character reads at times realistically, but also at times she stretched my credulity as a female reader.  The writing is fluid, and the editing is well done.

There is much invention and entertaining suspense in the book, which will surely please lovers of this genre.  The use of Tolkien and Fleming as characters in the book(s) is something that fans of those men's fiction might enjoy.  The authors provide a satisfying ending to this spy, buddy adventure, romance and religious story, all wrapped up in the historical conspiracy genre.

Jerusalem Mount of Olives burial cave with ossuaries

From the book's description:

It is Rome, 1943. The war in Europe is at a tipping point, but the direction in which it will tip is terrifyingly unclear. For either side, one dramatic initiative could change everything. It is under these conditions that the Nazis discover a secret that has been maintained for nearly two millennia – that the bones of Christ have been guarded in a cave in Italy by a small, secret group. If the bones can be uncovered, Hitler believes he will be able to use them to topple Christianity and turn the war irreversibly in his favor.

The clues to the location of the bones or the people protecting them are scarce. MI-6 agent Ian Fleming and scholar J.R.R. Tolkien – working in tandem once again at the behest of the British government – must spearhead a hastily assembled team, including an alluring prostitute, to piece the clues together before the Nazis try to turn humanity on its head.

The conclusion of the stunning trilogy that began with the national bestseller NO DAWN FOR MEN and continued with GOD'S FORMULA, THE BONE KEEPERS is literary entertainment of the first order.

Ossuary of Caiaphas the high priest who presided over the trial of Jesus of Nazareth

Here are direct links to the books at Amazon.com:

Please visit author James Lepore's website.

Corrupted by Lisa Scottoline

This legal-romance stars an interesting Italian-American protagonist, Benedetta (Bennie) Rosato.  Bennie is a lawyer in Philadelphia.  She is also six foot tall, in her 40s, with a blond curly mop of hair, blue eyes, and a non-girly-girl character.

She was fully six feet tall, which came in handy in a courtroom, if less on a date.

Bennie remains the focus of the book, and we learn much about her past, her present, her desires, her interests, and what she thinks of herself, with her self-deprecating humor taking a fore.

Bennie wished she were better in the maternal department, but she didn't get a lot of practice, unless you counted golden retrievers.

The first paragraph of Corrupted sets a hard-boiled tone, with the only exception to that genre being it is not a first-person narrative.

Bennie Rosato hadn't taken a murder case in years, but she'd have to take this one.  She'd been working late when the call came in, from a time she didn't want to remember and a place she didn't want to revisit.  Still, she'd said yes.  She couldn't assign the case to an associate, either.  Nobody paid her debts but her.  And she wanted redemption.

The hard-boiled style does not persist however.  The third-person limited narration does, from Bennie's perspective, and we remain firmly there.  There is lots of local Philly color and excellent quality writing, if you ignore the sentence fragments created by popular punctuation misuse, in this well-plotted novel.

I thought the main characters were presented well, believably, and they felt realistic.  We meet them almost always exclusively through dialog, with very little description of setting and action, almost in third-person objective (dramatic) style.  I did think that the love interest was a bit too perfect physically, reminding me of a Harlequin novel.

Corrupted expertly starts with the set-up, the premise for the book, and introduces the protagonist.  Then Part One begins, going back to 2002, to present the backstory.  Part of that backstory is a love affair for Bennie.  The original case takes up the first half of the book.

Part Two brings the reader back to the present, which includes an investigation of the present case, and a confrontation for Bennie with her former love. 

Part Three is the trial, and that will please fans of courtroom dramas, especially when the case is resolved in real Perry Mason style through an unusual cross-examination. 

The denouement sets the stage for more interesting personal stories for Benedetta (Bennie) Rosato in books to come.

A warning:  the bulk of the story is gritty, rough and sad.  The reader learns much about juvenile justice system in Corrupted, and it is indeed corrupt.  The very depressing aspects of child law and the damage it can do to child development are central to what the author set out to write, as she explains in her Afterword to Corrupted. 

She wanted to write, as she always does in her books:

"...about the intersection of justice and law"

But this book looked for inspiration to a real-life tragedy that grew out of greed and a lack of working consciences, that the author wanted to highlight so it would never happen again.  She set out to write a:

"moving and instructive novel"

Corrupted is moving and instructive, and very much based in Philly law, the setting for the story and the real-life crimes.

The lighter moments in the book are often with the staff at the law firm, who are described briefly for those who have not read the other books in the series.  For example, here is the description of Bennie's legal partner:

"Mary DiNunzio was proverbially short and sweet, a South-Philly Italian-American, with a tendency toward co-dependency."

Bennie's dry observations of life around her, and life in general, add humor too.

"...she couldn't remember the last time she'd been picked up in a bar with antlers."

"Life was an individual sport."

The protagonist's Italian-American heritage does not shine through, which could be because her upbringing was anything but typical of Italian-Americans, as we learn during the course of the book.

Corrupted is Book 3 in the Rosato & DiNunzio series, which is a spin-off series from the author's 11 book Rosato & Associates series.  The two law firms provide the main cast of the stories, with each book featuring one female lawyer as the protagonist. 

A legal case sets off the story that then follows the trail through court sessions, brainstorming sessions, investigations, confrontations which are sometimes thrilling and sometimes not, family or personal angst, and the courtroom ending.

I believe that the publisher does a disservice to this writer by promoting her books as something they are not and with unnecessary hyperbole, leaving quite a few readers disappointed when the book doesn't meet the expectations the marketers' created with their promotional texts.

What the author is not, is a Grisham or Turow clone.  Those two legal thriller writers' books are firmly male-perspective, even when they have supposedly female protagonists. 

If you purchase Lisa Scottoline's books with a clear head, knowing that you are getting legal romance/family novels, with some suspense, written from a female perspective for female readers, then you have a good chance of enjoying the books. 

Here are the three books in the Rosato & DiNunzio series with their misleading, and at times off-putting, hyperbolic descriptions, oh, and beware of the various covers, that might lead you to purchase the same book twice!

 

Rosato & Di Nunzio Book 1 - Accused

ACCUSED is the first legal thriller in New York Times bestseller Lisa Scottoline's Rosato & DiNunzio series.

Fiona Gardner was murdered six years ago in what appeared to be an open-and-shut case. The man condemned pleaded guilty. But Fiona's sister, Allegra, is convinced he is innocent.

As Allegra turns to the lawyers at Rosato & Associates, newly promoted partner Mary DiNunzio knows Allegra's parents are against revisiting the case. And only the foolhardy would dare to go up against the one of the most powerful families in the country.

But the women at Rosato & Associates can't resist an underdog.

It will take a team of utterly unstoppable lawyers, plus the help of a thirteen-year-old genius, to discover if justice really was served all those years ago...

Lisa Scottoline revolutionized crime fiction when she introduced her all-female law firm, Rosato & Associates. Now Bennie Rosato, Mary DiNunzio, Judy Carrier, and Anne Murphy are back with all cylinders firing in this fabulous new spin-off series.

Rosato & Di Nunzio Book 2 - Betrayed

Hot on the heels of ACCUSED, BETRAYED is the second legal thriller in New York Times bestseller Lisa Scottoline's electrifying Rosato & Di Nunzio series.

Judy Carrier has always been a champion of the underdog. When her Aunt's beloved friend Iris Juarez is found murdered, and a cache of dirty money is discovered, Judy and her Aunt know there must be more to it. No one was harder working or more loyal than Iris.

Their quest for justice takes them into a shadowy world of people who are so desperate that they cannot go to the police - and where others are so ruthless, they're counting on that vulnerability. As Judy digs deeper into the investigation, she knows she must do whatever it takes to help the betrayed...

Lisa Scottoline revolutionised crime fiction when she introduced her all-female law firm, Rosato & Associates. Now Bennie Rosato, Mary DiNunzio, Judy Carrier, and Anne Murphy are back with all cylinders firing in this fabulous new spin-off series.

Rosato & Di Nunzio Book 3 - Corrupted

Hot on the heels of ACCUSED and BETRAYED, CORRUPTED is the third legal thriller in New York Times bestseller Lisa Scottoline's electrifying Rosato & Di Nunzio series.

Bennie Rosato the founder of the Rosato & DiNunzio law firm hides her big heart beneath her tough-as-nails exterior and she doesn't like to fail. Now, a case from her past shows her how differently things might have turned out.

Thirteen years ago, Bennie Rosato took on Jason Leftavick, a twelve-year-old boy who was sent to a juvenile detention center after fighting a class bully. Bennie couldn't free Jason, and to this day it's the case that haunts her. Jason has grown up in and out of juvenile prison, and his adulthood hasn't been any easier.

Bennie no longer represents those accused of murder, but when Jason is indicted for killing the same bully he fought with as a kid, she sees no choice but to represent him. She doesn't know whether or not to believe his claims of innocence, but she knows she owes him for past failures-of the law, of the juvenile justice system, and of herself.

Forced to relive the darkest period of her life, Bennie will do everything in her power to get the truth, and justice.

If you want to read another book with Benedetta (Bennie) Rosato as the protagonist, you'll really have to choose carefully from the author's books, since she features different women from the law firm in each book.  To help you out, I've done the research for you.  Here are the protagonists of all the books in the Rosato & Associates series and the Rosato & DiNunzio series.

Rosato & DiNunzio

1. Accused (Mary DiNunzio)
2. Betrayed (Judy Carrier)
3. Corrupted (Bennie Rosato)

Rosato & Associates

1. Everywhere That Mary Went (Mary DiNunzio)
2. Legal Tender (Bennie Rosato)
3. Rough Justice (Marta Richter)
4. Mistaken Identity (Bennie Rosato)
5. Moment of Truth (Mary DiNunzio)
6. The Vendetta Defense (Judy Carrier)
7. Courting Trouble (Anne Murphy)
8. Dead Ringer (Bennie Rosato)
9. Killer Smile (Mary DiNunzio)
10. Lady Killer (Mary DiNunzio)
11. Think Twice (Bennie Rosato)

You can visit the author's website where there is lots of information on the author's website for book clubs.  And here is a link to a chatty interview the Lisa Scottoline and her daughter who is often her co-author.

The Lost Catacomb by Shifra Hochberg

The author of The Lost Catacomb embraces her genre of historical-conspiracy thriller with gusto.  The modern melodramatic style of the genre requires much research to plant the story within plausible ground, much plotting to create the evil plan that the antagonist has in motion, and academic characters to move the plot forward while informing the reader of what is being uncovered and its significance.

It is not an easy genre to write, and some readers find it cumbersome to read.  I like to just dive in and enjoy the fun, while excusing away any awkwardness inherent to the genre.     

The historical-conspiracy novel has enjoyed a boom since the success of Dan Brown's novels, foremost of which is The DaVinci Code, and their adaptations to films starring Tom Hanks.  If you'd like a comparison between this historical-conspiracy novel and those of Dan Brown, I'd point out that The Lost Catacomb's protagonist is a woman, and the book is written by a woman.

The strong female protagonist, Nicola, is an academic who can think for and take care of herself.  Her male sidekick, Bruno, is handsome, helpful, and eventually a love interest.  The role reversal may be most enjoyable for female readers.

 

As expected, the protagonist learns much about herself in the course of unwinding the evil plans of the antagonist.  One thing she learns is how strong she really is:

I never thought I'd have the strength, the courage, to do what I've done tonight.

The young professor has to face down pure evil, and come through it in one piece.  She comes away from it all slightly hardened, and full of purpose, and anger.

...anger at a world in which people conspired to kill others imply because they worshipped differently or had different ethnic origins.

That brings me to another Dan Brown comparison, or more accurately a contrast.  The protagonist uncovers not just a vast historical conspiracy, she also learns about herself, her family's history, and much more about her Italian roots.  She is a hyphenated Italian whose Italian grandmother never shared much of her culture with her American family.  So, being in Rome, Italy, working with Italians, falling in love with an Italian, awakens Nicola's interest in her roots.

I could make two other comparisons to Dan Brown's novels.  The author presents the necessary convoluted plot very well, just like Dan Brown.  She also has the sometimes unnatural sounding dialog as in the Dan Brown books.  That's a result, in both authors' books, of the genre requiring much explanation, exposition in book terms.  The most interesting way of presenting that information is through dialog, but all that information coming from people, even if they are university professors, can make for some awkward reading at times.  It is a hazard of the genre.

There are five parts to The Lost Catacomb, as the era of events changes.  Each part is entertaining in its own right, as if it were a short story.

1. The Present
2. 253 A.D.
3. The Present
4. 1943-44
5. The Present - Endings

Most of The Lost Catacomb is set Rome, Italy, and the Vatican.  It has Neo-Nazis, an international conspiracy of evil, some ancient Roman scenes, and some scenes set in WWII Rome that portray what some of Rome's Jewish citizens suffered then.  Rome's Jewish community is the oldest continually existent Jewish community in the world, dating to many centuries B.C.  The survival of that community during the war was no small event. 

I hope by now that readers of historical-conspiracy novels know that the history cited in the books is not fact, but fiction, created for the convenience of the plot.  In The Lost Catacomb that is the case with more than one date and fact.  If you are curious about the history mentioned in the book, and the historical figures mentioned, I suggest a trip to Wikipedia.com, where you can read up on the events and people.  That is just part of the fun of historical thrillers and novels, in my humble opinion, the sparking of interest in learning new things.

The book is well-edited and very attractively presented.  There is one short titillating sex scene, one short explicit sex scene, and a strong vulgarity here or there.  The narrative style is third-person limited, putting us in Nicola's mind whenever she is in the scene.  When she isn't in the scene, we are put into the mind of one of the other characters.

I enjoyed most of all the parts of the book set underground in Rome, in the catacombs, since they put the reader into another realm completely.  The reader can feel like a tomb raider at times, and memories of Indiana Jones III may come to mind.  The author has her academics use the correct terms underground, bringing great realism to their discussions.

This is one for fans of historical-conspiracy thrillers, and for readers who like female protagonists.  A suspension of disbelief is necessary, of course, and to take the history presented as not written in stone.

From the book's description (spoilers):

An intoxicating blend of Vatican thriller and heart-rending love story, THE LOST CATACOMB is a stunning debut novel set against the backdrop of the Holocaust in Italy. 

At its heart is Nicola Page, a beautiful young art historian who flies to Rome to assess a newly discovered catacomb of enigmatic provenance. Its magnificent frescoes hold the clues to a centuries-old murder and the existence of a fabled treasure from the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. 

Assisted by a handsome Italian archaeologist, Nicola is quickly drawn into a tangled web of intrigue and peril, masterminded by a powerful priest who is determined to destroy those who would reveal the dark secrets of the past. 

And as Nicola uncovers layer after layer of this deadly past, she is brought face to face with shocking facts about her own family history—facts that will forever change the course of her life.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com : 

Please visit the author's website.

Moonlight in Tuscany by Kate Fitzroy

Moonlight in Tuscany is a Goldilocks story of a woman who, after three tries, finds the love of her life.  Along the way, she also develops to her emotional, professional and sexual peak.  There are many titillating sex scenes, but the author includes nothing vulgar or explicit.

This is a novel that would appeal most to so-called new adult women, giving them a vicarious experience with three lovers and some idea of what to expect when looking for a mate who will fit well with a modern professional woman's lifestyle.

I'm not a new adult, so my review may be a bit skewed for many potential readers.  As a mature woman, I found that the relationships Lily had during the course of the story brought back too many bittersweet, and sometimes outright painful, memories from my own relationships.  That limited my enjoyment of the book.

Dr. Lily Fairfax, a Cambridge University scholar of medieval Italian history (which brings her to Italy in the course of the book), is the protagonist.  She's a Titian beauty with golden-red hair, and intellectual who hides from her emotions by intellectualizing her experiences.  She finds it a struggle to:

...enter real life, not escape into fiction or history...

The third person limited narration puts us deep into Lily's thoughts.  Sometimes I found that a bit stifling, because I didn't always like Lily's thoughts.  She's quietly confident to outsiders, but inside her head that can seem like arrogance and selfishness.  That style of narration is one that many readers have come to expect these days, especially the target reader of female new adults.

Lily can be a struggle to like at times.  She is almost too perfect, with her only seeming flaws being jealousy and intellectual arrogance.  She is gorgeous, successful, smart, confident, with a loving parent, and she's sexy.

The last trait is one that develops during the course of the book as she becomes more comfortable with her sexual nature.  I suppose if a reader is going to fantasize along with the protagonist, she would like to imagine herself so perfect too, so the protagonist fits well with the book's overall concept of new adult fantasy.

The readers follows Lily as she:

entered a new lightweight world of fun

Lily's lightweight world of fun turns serious when she starts breaking hearts.  That is when a mature female character is brought into the story to dish out this advice:

You're a beautiful woman, bellissima, you are certain to break many hearts before you find the right one.

The woman offers Lily a shoulder to cry on, and someone to confide in, especially when she is suffering the painful feeling of loss that comes with the end of a relationship.  The woman also offers the unrealistic idea that:

Somewhere out there would be a man that would be everything she desired.

That lack of realism that recurs throughout the book gives it a strong fantasy feeling.  Even the author admits it through her characters who reflect that their love story is like a sweet film romance that is too good to be true.  Yes, the final lover is too good to be true, but that is part of the fantasy fun for the reader.

On a serious note, I missed a mention of safe birth control, since the lifestyle the book describes for modern woman is not possible with out it, and because in a book for new adults it is responsible to mention it.

Lily is quite open to flings, and that sort of lifestyle brings with it dangers not just of unintended pregnancy, but of disease and violence from putting oneself in an intimate situation with a stranger.  None of those things are even hinted at in the book, despite Lily feeling:

It's as though I am in the real world at last.

All of that makes me consider the book more of a fantasy story, than a character study or a novel about a woman developing her knowledge of herself.  The Goldilocks three lovers adds to the fantasy feeling, too.

In the back of my mature female mind, however, I had my doubts about Lily's final, perfect partner, but I'll keep them to myself, to leave the younger reader a chance to discover those things on her own.  Not everything a new adult needs to know can be found in a novel! 

 

From the book's description:

Clever Doctor Lily Fairfax is the youngest don at Cambridge... beautiful, too.  But does she understand the meaning of love?  Leaving her sheltered academic life for a long summer in Tuscany, she finds passion... but is this love or lust?  Can it endure?  Can she give up everything she has worked for and achieved for a new and different life?  Intelligent enough to analyse her own psyche, she still struggles to find the reality that her inner soul is searching for... the complete happiness that only true love can give?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

The author has another new adult romance set in Tuscany, which I've reviewed on this site:  Dreams of Tuscany.  And she has several romances set in Provence, France.  Please visit her Amazon.com author's page.

 

City of Illusions by Judith Works

In City of Illusions, the author gives the reader an Innocents Abroad story about a U.S. American couple who discover what the life of the expatriate worker in Rome, Italy, is really like, while offering the reader a glimpse at Rome's many attractions, distractions, and faults.

The Americans are a thirty-something married couple from Seattle, Washington, whose marriage has serious cracks, and whose characters have even more cracks.  The book could be seen as the study of a crumbling marriage, set in Rome, Italy.

The story of Europe's decadence corrupting naive Americans, Innocents Abroad, has been a favorite of authors for generations.  The freedom of being way from family, religious and social pressure proves to be too much for puritanical, law-abiding Americans again and again.

...safe Seattle where life had always seemed under control and people were normal.

At times the story was like watching a train wreck, as the husband and wife made one poor decision after another, with equally poor justifications for doing so.  Their limited, safe lives before they went to Rome, leave them ill-prepared for what they encounter, and for what they learn about themselves.

I found two points addressed in the book to be very interesting:  blogs and romanticized Italy.  Being a modern book about plugged in people, the author mentions the seemingly overwhelming need some people feel to keep a blog about their life, for all the world to read.

The truth about too many blogs, however, is shown to be that they are too often merely a new version of autobiographical-fiction that people use to boost their self-esteem, and to make others envious.  The protagonist muses at one point that:

Reading about other people's delightful lives, however, only brought an unwelcome comparison...

Most interesting is the portrayal of people who've dreamed of a romanticized Italy, egged on my too many romanticized and sanitized blogs, and those people's reactions when they encounter the real deal. 

Rome is not the Rome from the film Roman Holiday.  Rome is a big, congested, dirty, chaotic, noisy, expensive city that is flooded with tourists, and with beggars and thieves, at times seemingly in equal number.

The view of Rome as something other than what people expect is nothing new.  The Early Renaissance artist Giotto provides the quote about Rome that gave the author the title of this book:

Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning.

One of the expatriates the couple meet in Rome explains:

...living in Rome is either a one or a two, or a nine or ten.  Not much in between.  And some days it's both.

The story is believable for the most part, although the ending convinced me less than the rest of the book.  The writing is fluid and confident, with the narrative style of third-person limited used throughout, varying the point of view from the wife to the husband, but beginning and ending with the wife's point of view. 

The biggest difference from the classic Innocents Abroad sagas is the ending.  In the 19th and 20th century versions, the protagonists usually ends up seriously wounded or dead (think Daisy Miller).  In this modern incarnation, the protagonists are given relatively happy endings.  The classic tragedy has morphed into a contemporary saga of self-realization.

City of Illusions is an Innocents Abroad saga about two immature, self-centered, naive, insecure, morally-challenged, passive-aggressive, thirty-something U.S. Americans who are forced to grow up, at least a bit, during a one year stay in Rome, Italy.

I leave you with a quote from the author including some excellent book recommendations:

It seems that there are very few novels about actually living as an expat in contemporary Rome (which I can attest veers regularly from sublime to very annoying).  I have several favorite books about Rome and all are quite old now: Carlo Levi's Fleeting Rome, A Time in Rome by Elizabeth Bowen, and Rome and a Villa by Eleanor Clark.  All express the changing yet unchanging nature of the city.  This being said, we were in Rome in May and the city is facing very difficult times.

From the book's description:

Laura's 30th birthday is looming.  Dissatisfied with her life and marriage she impulsively applies for a job in Rome.  When the offer arrives she can't wait to leave gray Seattle and make her dreams of adventure and a rejuvenated marriage come true.

But she and Jake soon learn la dolce vita is far more complicated than expected as they are catapulted into a world full of intrigue, deceit, and infidelity lurking behind the seductive food and wine, sunny piazzas, and crumbling ruins.  Instead of using his time to begin painting again as he promised, Jake becomes involved in Rome's underground corruption.

Now Laura must make a choice as her life spins out of control.  Should she preserve her marriage at all costs or search elsewhere for the key to the happiness she desires?

In this woman's fiction set in the romantic city of Rome, author Judith Works shows there is more to the City of Illusions than meets the eye. 

The author has this memoirs about her time living and working in Rome, Italy.

From the book's description:

Do you want to know what it is really like to live the expatriate life in Rome?  How to cope with a sinking sailboat, an auto accident with the military police, your Italian neighbors entering your apartment in the middle of the night?  Do you know the inspiration for Pasta alla Puttanesca (hint: the prostitutes outside my office)?  Attend Italian weddings?  Would you like to meet the countess with her butt-reductng machine and the count who served as a model for statues of naked horsemen?  An assault during a wine club outing? How about country weekends in Umbria where the Etruscans still seem to be lurking about?

It's all here in Coins in the Fountain, the story of a couple who said "NO!" to middle age and made a dash from Oregon to Rome where the author had the glorious experience of living in Italy while working for the United Nations - twice.  Part memoir, part travelogue to off-beat sites in Rome and elsewhere, you will be amused and intrigued with the stories of food, friends and adventures.  You, too, will want to run away to join the Circus (the Circus Maximus, that is).  And, before you depart Rome, you will never forget to throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain to ensure a return to beautiful Rome and enchanting Italy.

Here is a link to the book City of Illusions at Amazon.com, and to the author's memoirs Coins in the Fountain.

You can visit with the author via Facebook or her website.

Hotel Caruso (Victor Barnier Series) by Carina Sanfey

Victor Barnier is a super-spy in the James Bond tradition, but with a difference:  he is Anglo-Italian, and he works not for a government agency but for a private security firm.  Hotel Caruso, the bad guys' stronghold that is just outside of Taormina-Sicily, is the name of Book One in the growing Victor Barnier Series. 

Victor works for SORN and he is known as:

...one of the Seniors, a group of ten agents tasked with the most top-secret and dangerous missions.

All the elements of a Bond espionage book are present.  We have the baddies, the secretive good guys, the expert assassinations, the evil mastermind, and the protagonist who is subjected to horrible suffering before finally winning out in the end.  There is some disturbing violence in the book, pretty much on par with the James Bond novels.

The writing style reminded me of John LeCarre's espionage book style, with a subtle shifting between an omniscient narrator and a 3rd-person limited narration.  The prose is smooth and expert, with a few lingering typos that will certainly be weeded out soon.

Victor Barnier gets a great intro at the beginning of the book, and he grows in depth as the book progresses.  He is a damaged man, or he wouldn't be a professional killer, and he has a very surprising manifestation of his damaged nature, that I won't reveal, but which is sure to surprise readers.  We get explanations of some of the causes of his damaged nature, and there are hints of more causes that are left for development in future books.

Like all espionage books, Hotel Caruso begins with the our spy, then his mission, then the bad guys, scuffles, bigger scuffles, near defeat, then a resurgence of our hero, who wins in the end but at a cost to his sanity and health.  He lives to fight another bad guy, another day, but life does not get any easier for our hero.  All is accompanied by some cool techno-gadgets!

Much of the action in the book takes place in Sicily, just outside of beautiful Taormina in the shadow of Mount Etna.  The bad guys' stronghold is actually a resort hotel overlooking the bay of Taormina.  Illegal arms traders along the Mediterranean Sea set off the story, but with nice surprises and twists the story quickly builds into a mission to save the capitals of many nations.  Hotel Caruso is for spy-novel fans!

The books in the Victor Barnier Series so far are:

1. Hotel Caruso
2. Symphonic Murder
3. Rosean Revenge (coming soon)  

From the book's description:

Victor Barnier is an experienced field agent working for SORN, an independent intelligence organisation based in London's financial district. SORN is trying to avoid being taken over by MI6; Barnier, who lives and usually works alone, is trying to avoid social interaction as much as possible.

Sent to investigate an apparently corrupt hotelier on the eastern coast of Sicily, he doesn't expect to have to do anything more than a routine investigation, but he soon finds himself in his own personal hell as Robert Cole, a supposedly deceased arms smuggler and vicious killer from his past, comes back to haunt him with a shocking revelation about Victor's own childhood that will turn Victor's life on its head.

The second book in the series is Symphonic Murder:

Victor Barnier, a secret agent working for SORN, London's unofficial intelligence agency, is sent on a mission to Shanghai which very nearly destroys his career.  Can he redeem himself and, more importantly, stay alive?

Here are direct links to the two books in the Victor Barnier Series at Amazon.com:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Bus 64 - Roma by Umberto Bartolomeo

This collection of 48 short stories is by far the best self-published book I have read to date.  The quality of writing is inspiring and on par with award-winning literary short-story collections.  The appeal for Italophiles is that the author brings Rome, Italy, and Italians to life for the reader, with literary skill and a deep understanding of the human heart.

After just the first few paragraphs, I felt like I was in strong, capable, literary arms.  I love the conversational yet authoritative tone, and all the local lore, history, humor, erudition, psychological understanding, and heart that enrich the stories about people, not caricatures, and about daily life in Rome.

Here is the premise behind the collection of overlapping stories:

Welcome aboard this book about a bus...

Our narrator is a passenger on Rome's Bus 64, and he invites us to join him for the ride from beginning to end.  Along the way, expertly drawing us along with him, he introduces us to the driver and some of the other passengers, letting us into their hearts and minds, into their lives and professions:  a businessman, a restaurateur, an architect, a housewife, mother, servant, the unemployed, tourists, immigrants, the pensioned... 

Have you read The Canterbury Tales, or The Decameron?  This is a modern-day version written with Kurt Vonnegut-esque wit, with the characters mingling and showing their best and worst sides to our omniscient narrator, and through him, to us.

   

Rome is a character in the stories, too.  We are treated to snapshots of Rome:  her bridges, streets, monuments, filth and crowds.

Too many monumental structures that are too close together, too heavily embellished, constructed too ambitiously for forever.

And we get to meet Rome's people:

...some people here seem to have stepped through a time-warp -- old Romans being recycled with a mere change of costume.

The author takes us on a journey from the stories Rome--Caput Mundi and Waiting for our Driver, to The End of the Line and Buona Notte!! on "...a public bus, frill-less and elemental...".  We feel the press of messy humanity around us in Rome, with people from all over the world, coming together on a city bus. 

With Chekovian psychological subtlety, the author helps us explore Rome's and the characters' sights, visitors, smells, frailties, passions, sins, rigid thoughts, biases, bowels, dreams, sins, goals and mortality.  He exposes to us the characters' various world views.

There is much humor to lighten the tales that roam "...Rome's video-game streets..." but it is the author's way with words, his ability to turn a phrase, that is the greatest pleasure on this journey from the Vatican to the Stazione Termini.

"...loafing in the easy chair of one's body."

"...fraternitas, the civic bond that men needed if they were to live together like true men?"

"This was a feigned mildness, though, the mask worn by the immigrant."

"Death's time-worn road was well paved now, it seemed."

Characters, once introduced in their own stories, sometimes outside of the bus, return within stories about other passengers.  By the end of the collection, we have become part of a small community of players, acting and interacting on the author's mobile stage:  Bus 64.

Some themes connect the stories, such as the recurring sense of time passing, eras changing, cultures clashing, personalities exerting their uniqueness to the frustration of other characters. 

The author demonstrates a wise awareness of the human condition that goes beyond time and age and experience, suggesting that he is not like the character in the book whom he describes as:

She had passed her whole life as does everyone, rushing and dreaming in blind, deaf refusal of the miracle of each moment.

While never indulging in pathos, the reader will feel their heart warn to a few of the characters, like the rose-selling street-woman.

We know nothing about this old woman, while her twinkling fox-eyes seem to know very much about us.  They know about our car and our flat with its lock and its furniture.  About our refrigerator humming, stocked and waiting.  Our paychecks and savings, our pillowed bed and television, our vacations and insurance, our watch, thermostat and wardrobe.  As we take the rose from her hand, we see her wizened face against the starry sky.  And she sees us.  And she is watching, closely watching. ... it was through her that we stepped somehow, for brief moments, out of time.  [excerpt: Pantheon Rose]

If you enjoy reading quality, polished, moving, expert, psychologically astute writing, then Bus 64 - Roma is the book for you.  Take your time with the stories.  Embrace the diverse characters.  I promise you that by the end of the collection, you will feel that you have been a passenger on Bus 64, and that you have met and known several dozen Romans and visitors to Rome.  Travel virtually to the Caput Mundi.

I'll leave you with a quote from a story about a man who lives in one of the government-housing apartment buildings on the periphery of Rome, with the families stacked in cubicle-like housing reminiscent of ancient Rome's insulae:

From a dozen other windows came the anchor-man's stern voice, with the latest details of what you already knew:  that the world was in chaos and that war, crime and money were the sun, moon and stars.

From the book's description:

Rome's notoriously crowded BUS 64 crawls from the Vatican, through the historic center, to Stazione Termini... crammed inside are the priest, butcher, tourist, gypsy, secretary, business tycoon, homeless schizophrenic, African immigrant... all pressed much too close for comfort.

Teeming with the thoughts, dreams and passions of modern Romans, and the sights, sounds, and smells of the Eternal City, the 49 stories in BUS 64 continually shift gears between elegy, satire, whimsy, shocking realism, fable, and more... each style riveting in its quite different way.

As the loaded bus plods on, readers will catch whiffs of authors ranging from Boccaccio to Steinbeck, Henry Miller to Hans Christian Andersen, all fused in a mature literary voice all its own. Filled with wit and acute perceptions - emotional, psychological, physical and spiritual - this high-spirited portrait of Rome has got edge, heart, guts, and verbal artistry. Above all, it has the FEEL of Rome.

If you know and love Rome, BUS 64 will delight you. And if you haven't been there, a ride through this book is almost as good as a visit.

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.