Set in beautiful Positano, Italy, the latest in Michael Falco’ s transporting and hilarious series featuring widowed American B&B owner Bria Bartolucci is perfect for fans of Mario Giordano, Donna Leon, Lorenzo Carcaterra, and Jean-Luc Bannalec.
The sea, sunshine, and sleuthing have given Bria Bartolucci a new lease on life since her husband’ s passing, and her southern Italian B and B is running as smoothly as her love life. But, just like the Amalfi Coast, some relationships can be rocky— and some can be downright deadly . . .
After solving a couple of murders, Bria is now known in the village as the “ Italian Miss Marple, ” which could cause problems in her budding romance with the local police chief. But for now, all of Positano is abuzz with the homecoming of a star now that Carlotta Incantaro, a famous opera diva, is coming out of retirement to make one last public appearance.
Not all the locals are happy about Carlotta’ s return and Bria soon begins to hear stories about the singer’ s petty past. She destroyed one woman’ s music career and tried to sabotage her rival’ s chances in a beauty pageant. With Carlotta staying at her bed-and-breakfast, Bria learns firsthand just how high-maintenance and demanding the woman can be. Even though Carlotta’ s loyal pianist tries his best to smooth things over by blaming her nerves on her daughter’ s upcoming wedding to a former soccer player, Bria senses something is terribly wrong.
And once again, Bria’ s right. Carlotta’ s swan song is just the beginning of the drama— after the performance, a dead body is found in the piazza. Bria is quickly drawn into a tragedy worthy of any opera, uncovering a family’ s darkest secrets and deadly passions . . .
