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A Murder in Tuscany

  • Jan 17, 2021
  • Christobel Kent
  • 393 responses.

A Murder in Tuscany Sandro Cellini P I Florence s answer to Donna Leon s Guido Brunetti returns in this atmospheric mystery set in a forbidding castle As Sandro Cellini comes to grips with the tough realities of life a

  • Title: A Murder in Tuscany
  • Author: Christobel Kent
  • ISBN: 9781429970808
  • Page: 268
  • Format: ebook

    • Sandro Cellini, P I Florence s answer to Donna Leon s Guido Brunetti, returns in this atmospheric mystery set in a forbidding castle.As Sandro Cellini comes to grips with the tough 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 backgroundSandro Cellini, P I Florence s answer to Donna Leon s Guido Brunetti, returns in this atmospheric mystery set in a forbidding castle.As Sandro Cellini comes to grips with the tough 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 background check back in Sandro s earliest days as a private investigator, the glamorous, charming, and ruthless Loni Meadows, the director of an American Italian artistic retreat in a castle in the hills outside Florence, goes off the icy road in her car one night The circumstances of her death seem less than accidental to Sandro However inconvenient his suspicions might be, both to Sandro whose marriage appears to be disintegrating in the aftermath of his wife s illness and to Meadows s erstwhile employers, the detective presses on As he attempts to uncover the truth of Meadows s violent and lonely death, Sandro finds himself drawn into the lives of the castle s highly strung community and the closed world they inhabit in the isolated Etruscan hills of the Maremma.Reminiscent of a locked room mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, A Murder in Tuscany leads the reader from one possible perpetrator to the next to Sandro s chagrin, all of the artists in residence at the time of Loni s demise had than enough reason to dislike her But who in the group h

    • ↠ A Murder in Tuscany ✓ Christobel Kent
      268 Christobel Kent
    A Murder in Tuscany

    About "Christobel Kent"

    1. Christobel Kent

      Christobel Kent was born in London in 1962 and now lives in Cambridge with her husband and four children in between she lived in Florence She worked in publishing for several years, most recently as Publicity Director at Andre Deutsch Her debut novel A Party in San Niccolo, was published in 2003.Series Sandro Cellini

    393 Comments

    1. Quick summary from Loni Meadows is the beautiful, unstable director of an arts foundation headquartered in a crumbling castle outside Florence When Meadows dies under peculiar circumstances, it becomes clear that almost everyone at Castello Orfeo would have been pleased to see her dead Years ago, as a low level member of the Florence police force, Sandro Cellini, now working sporadically as a private eye, ran a routine background check on Meadows, and he hopes that the tidbits he learned back th [...]

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    2. This book is also titled for the second edition A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE and is the second in a series featuring Sandro Cellini, a former member of the Florence police, now a private investigator A very good read, as was Ms Kent s first of the series, THE DROWNING RIVER From Loni Meadows is the beautiful, unstable director of an arts foundation headquartered in a crumbling castle outside Florence When Meadows dies under peculiar circumstances, it becomes clear that almost everyone at Castello Or [...]

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    3. This is a detective novel, with the emphasis on novel Yes, there is a mystery and a pretty good one, too but the real appeal of the book is the novelistic development of some complex characters There s a pretty good sized cast and nearly all of them seem quite well rounded with complicated motivations for doing what they do And it doesn t hurt that it s set in Italy, too I liked this book a lot and wouldn t mind reading some by this author.

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    4. Gave up on this one and didn t bother finishing it Initially liked it, but got bogged down It seemed to move far too slowly for my taste and eventually decided I simply didn t care enough to keep going Pity she writes well, good dialogue and well developed characters, but after wading through lots of words the lack of story momentum became irritating Almost split in two, between Cellini and Cate She s interesting, he much less so.

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    5. Italian noir Very atmospheric Love this series, love our ex detective, but this one was spoiled for me by the very poor copy editing of the kindle edition Lots of typos relating to where sentences ended And the new one Began Weird and distracting, and there were enough of them to ruin the entire middle Of the book.

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    6. Italian retired police officer, Sandro Chillini, now a private investigator, is hired to investigate a murder of Loni Meadows She was the director of an artist s retreat that was housed in an ancient castle in Tuscany Unusual characters keep this a page turner You will want to visit the Castle Orfeo to immerse yourself in this murder.

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    7. Loved itEven better than book 1 Really enjoyed it and am keen to start the 3rd book Good characters and interesting plot.

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    9. I wanted to love A Murder in Tuscany It has all the elements I enjoy in a good mystery the Tuscany setting for starters, plus a solid and likable PI, interesting support characters, and a dreary castle full of weirdos Christobel Kent s ability to define a novel by its sense of place is one of her writing s best features Her skills are particularly fine at the end of this novel However, some of the technical things she did this time around drove me to distraction Totally my problem I own it Parag [...]

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    10. 3.5 stars This is the second book in the Sandro Cellini series Sandro is called in when a contentious director of an artist retreat set in a remote manor is found dead in a car wreck He had previously done some background check work for the foundation, and leaves his home and current surveillance job to his sometime assistant He is having some relationship challenges with his wife during her recovery from breast cancer and has some worries about her relationship with her boss He is also shocked [...]

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    11. Competently written, with a setting I greatly enjoyed, I nonetheless didn t love this tale of an American woman, director of an artists retreat in Florence, who skids off an icy road and dies in circumstances that look suspicious The dual point of view narrative, shared by detective Sandro Cellini, and Cate, an employee of the institute, seemed contrived to me Also, I m getting tired of the device at the conclusion of a murder mystery where the author whiplashes us in the space of one or two pag [...]

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    12. This one is in the tradition of locked room mysteries with a lomited number of suspects each with a plausible motive to have done the deed It is ideal for the detail person Each motive is spelled out with the appropriate opportunity It takes a while to get the characters straight in one s mind so it is best read when you have a few hours at a time to devote to it unless, of course, your powers of concentration and memory are better than mine An enjoyable read though and a pleasant break from mys [...]

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    13. Loved this book Being all about characters I enjoyed the dual protagonists, Sandro Cellini, the private investigator and Caterina Giottone Cate, an amateur sleuth who lives in the castle The setting was very well drawn, too I would get a chill up my spine reading about the eerie, cold castle, and the wintery blustery days This book is a mystery was there a murder committed and if so, by whom But those questions seemed really to be a sideline to finding out about each character and how they woul [...]

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    14. The 2nd book in Kent s Sandro Cellini series is a bit fleshed out than the first book, which delivers a satisfying experience The characters are complex, the setting and atmosphere are well described, and the plotting is paced at a thoughtful and measured stride As with most all good books, it s the journey not the destination that counts The whodunnit nature of a mystery is much less interesting than how did I get here Looking forward to Kent s 3rd installment in the near future.

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    15. Sandro Cellini, former Florentine police officer turned private investigator is hired by a well known human rights attorney to investigate the death of his wife who was killed in an auto accident on an icy mountain road She was the director of an American Italian artists retreat in a castle in the hills outside Florence It s a sort of locked room mystery with a cast of interesting characters the international artists in residence and the locals who take care of them and a great setting Well writ [...]

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    16. I thoroughly enjoyed A fine and private place a beautifully crafted murder mystery, with characters I could believe in Every time I was sure whodunnit , I was wrong It kept me enthralled to the end And the setting, in wintery Italy, was superbly drawn I look forward to reading about Sandro Cellini My only slight gripe was that the proofreading could have been better throughout the kindle version, there are formatting errors and stray punctuation, which do a disservice to this otherwise great re [...]

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    17. Better than 3 stars, not quite 4 The second in the series followed the formula set up in the first beautiful girl naively gathering information, investigator carefully accumulating details, cold winter weather in Florence Skillfully accomplished in most respects but I would not recommend reading the two in the series back to back as I did And the grammar police have plenty to grumble about I d still recommend it to fans of crime fiction.

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    18. Loni, director of an Italian artist s retreat, dies in an accident Or did she Cate, the outsider hired for her English skills, notices things and wonders The dead woman s powerful husband hires humble but dogged detective Sandro Cellini to look into it while Sandro himself wonders if his marriage of 30 years is disintegrating Miss Marple or detective Columbo fans will like this.

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    19. My rating would be a 3.5 Sandro Cellini is having a hard time getting started as a private investigator Cases are slow in coming his way Now he finds himself involved with a case at a castle, an artistic retreat Giuli has a bigger role in this novel and Luisa is coming to terms with surviving her bout with cancer.

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    20. I really enjoyed this novel The characters were rich in personality and held my interest I loved the secondary characters such as Giuli and Cate I was left with a deep impression of atmosphere of this area of Tuscany and could feel the palpable tension as I read Couldn t put this book down and devoured it in two days.

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    21. I read this for my mystery book club, it took a while for me to get into it The characters all seemed depressed or conflicted I was hoping for some descriptions of warm and sunny Italian scenery Oh well.

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    22. Having just returned from a visit to Italy and Florence, I enjoyed this book because of the location I thought that the way that the murder and Sandro s relationship with his wife was a good twist to the mystery.

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    23. I simply could not get into this book I am incredibly disappointed since my book club read this and for the first time a mystery was chosen and I am a huge mystery fan Unfortunately, the writing style just didn t do it for me.

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    24. This is a superior investigation into what may be an accidental death If it s not an accident, there s a real mystery as to how it could be organised.opionator.wordpress 2012 0

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    25. A really good read with this time about other chractes than the first one we read Fun to rad about places where you know the street and the surrounding area The characters are developing nicely Can t wait for the next one.

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    26. I didn t even finish the book, that s how much I didn t like it I almost never stop reading a book, but I kept giving it another chance but could never get into it.

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    27. Because I loved The Drowning River , I really wanted to love this book, but, I couldn t even like it Forced myself to get half way, but found it so uninteresting.

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    28. I hate to say it but after the first 20 pages I just was not pulled in I had to return it to the library So sorry to say I guess this book just wasn t for me.

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