Death in the Dolomites: A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery

Death in the Dolomites is the second book to feature Rick Montoya, an Italian-American who makes his living as a translator. His uncle is a well-placed senior police office in Rome who wants to persuade his nephew to become a detective. This is another opportunity for our hero to gain experience, translating for a detective in a ski resort when an American banker is found dead.

In theory, this is a book giving an insight into the lives of people who live and work in Italy. There’s a fairly detailed description of the meals they eat, the wines they drink, and the fairly expensive places they visit. In this case, the tourist resort in the snow-topped mountains gets a reasonable review. However, background color and interesting meals do not a good mystery make. This aims to be a Golden Age style book in which a small group of people could have done the deed. It rapidly comes down to a choice between two and then we know whodunnit. Being realistic, this is far better than the first in the series, but is still not really worth reading because the characterization is thin and some of the thriller action is risible.