Murder Italian Style
About
A dream vacation to Italy turns deadly when the past refuses to stay buried.
When style expert Samantha Kidd plans a holiday in Italy, she imagines sunlit piazzas, incredible food, and a chance to unwind. Instead, a favor for her host draws her into a decades-old murder that still haunts the small town.
The victim was Alfredo, a man few people mourned. The convicted killer is Pasquale, a quiet cobbler who has spent years behind bars for the crime. And the person who could have cleared him—Samantha’s host—was out of town that night, beginning life-saving cancer treatments that made coming forward impossible.
Now questions are resurfacing, and not everyone wants the truth uncovered.
With time running out and old resentments simmering beneath the surface, Samantha must uncover what really happened all those years ago—before her Italian getaway becomes something far more dangerous.
Murder Italian Style is the sixteenth mystery in the Killer Fashion Mysteries, combining international intrigue, a thoughtful cold-case puzzle, and the wit and warmth that prove justice never goes out of style.
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Genre: Cozy Mystery, Amateur Sleuth, Holiday Fiction
Level of Fashion: Italian Chic
PRINT ISBN: 9781954579200 | eBOOK ISBN: 9781954579194
Praise for this book
Vallere’s enjoyable latest outing for fashion expert and amateur sleuth Samantha Kidd (after Ranch Dressing) strikes a balance between mystery and humor. Samantha is vacationing in Italy with her husband, Nick, when Isabella—an Italian native and the daughter of Nick’s father’s business partner—asks her to crack a closed case. Almost 30 years earlier, Isabella was romantically involved with a shoemaker’s apprentice named Pasquale. On the same day Isabella told Pasquale she’d been diagnosed with cancer and had to leave for monthslong treatment in Switzerland, Pasquale was arrested for murdering Alfredo, a man he’d recently argued with at a bar. When Pasquale was convicted, Isabella believed he was guilty—but in the years since, doubts have crept in. Samantha agrees to take a look at the case and quickly finds holes in the original inquiry, including the fact that Italian police never firmly established Pasquale’s motive. As Samantha charges forward in her investigation, Vallere peppers the narrative with memorable turns of phrase (“Like a Chia Pet that had been recently watered, I felt buds of curiosity bursting through the fertile ground of my mind”) and charming local color. The result is a breezy cozy that’s well suited for poolside reading.