Death and the Olive Grove by Marco VichiMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The setting of this murder mystery is Florence, Italy in 1964. Inspector Bordelli is a detective who was told by his friend, Casimiro, that there is a dead body in a field in Fiesole. The detective has known the dwarf for many years and went with him to see the body. However, when they got there, the body was gone. Instead, they were attacked by a dog which Bordelli shot before it could hurt them.
Some days later, a mutilated corpse of a young girl is discovered at Villa Ventaglio. The child had two marks on her neck and her stomach had some sort of bite mark. Soon after that, there is another body of a young girl found bearing the same marks. Bordelli is now trying his best to find out who the murderer is before another body is found.
The going is slow and Bordelli, along with his assistant Piras, is working very hard but have not been able to find out much. To complicate matters, the dwarf Casimiro goes missing. The Inspector decides to go to his dwarf friend's home. There he makes a gruesome discovery, Casimiro's body has been stuffed in a suitcase. Bordelli is beginning to feel very frustrated and also somewhat depressed. He knows he must find the man who killed the young girls, as well as the person who killed his friend.
The book is a sequel to Death in August, which features Inspector Bordelli facing a murder mystery. I have not yet read that book but I am planning to do so soon. Death and the Olive Grove is a good murder mystery albeit kind of slow. Marco Vichi makes the reader feel that he or she is seeing Florence as it was in 1964.
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