Death in Springtime

JACKET NOTES:  March 1st brought a freak snowstorm - and a bizarre kidnapping - to Florence.
Commuters queuing up for the bus in Florence's Piazza San Felice turned up their collars and looked anxiously at the sky, amazed by the wet snowflakes falling all around them. And then, right before the distracted eyes of Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri, two young women are kidnapped... one of them Deborah Maxwell, the daughter of a rich American businessman.
When the other victim shows up bleeding and hysterical, Captain Maestrangelo joins Marshal Guarnaccia in a search through the Tuscan hills. With unerring investigative instincts, Captain Maestrangelo probes into the victim's background and Guarnaccia's memory in a desperate attempt to save Deborah's life before the suspected Sardinian shepherds make a deadly mistake.
(©Penguin Books)

Dear friend and fellow author,
What a pleasure it is to wander with you through the streets of Florence, with their carabinieri, working people, trattorie, even their noisy tourists. It is all so alive: its sounds audible, its smells as perceptible as the light morning mist above the Arno's swift current; and then up into the foothills, where the Sardinian shepherds, their traditions and the almost unchanged rhythm of their lifestyle, are just as skilfully portrayed. What wouldn't one give to taste one of their ricotta cheeses!
You have managed to absorb it all and to depict it vividly, whether it is the various ranks of the carabinieri, and of course the ineffable Substitute Prosecutor, or the trattorie in the early morning hours. There is never a false note. You even capture that shimmer in the air which is so peculiar to this city and to the still untamed countryside close at hand.
This is a novel to be savoured, even more than its two predecessors. It is the first time I have seen the theme of kidnapping treated so simply and so plausibly. Although the cast of characters is large, they are so well etched in a few words that their comings and goings are easily followed.
Bravissimo! You have more than fulfilled your promise.

Georges Simenon
Lausanne, April 1983