Here are 74 books that The Marshal's Own Case fans have personally recommended if you like
The Marshal's Own Case.
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In 2015, I had a meltdown. I was finishing my PhD, teaching two classes, consulting, and was the “alpha parent” to two small children. It was overwhelming, and I was pulling away from work to survive. As a gender specialist, I knew all the data around gender norms and inequality. And here I was, falling into the same trap! Long story short, my husband and I made many changes at home. And I altered my work. I still do international projects, but I also do research and writing about gender inequality in North America, using my expertise to address inequality in my community and helping others with their own meltdowns.
I am a wee bit obsessed with mysteries. This is my genre of choice for vacations, plane rides, and the occasional lazy afternoon. And I love the way that Barbara Neely blends a classic whodunnit with the topic of gender equality. Barbara Neely, who is now deceased, left the world with a gem of a 4-book series about Blanche White, who is a domestic worker by profession—and an accidental sleuth on the side.
But what I love most about this series is the way Neely weaves huge issues like misogyny, racism, classism, and violence through her story while delivering a smart, page-turning mystery. In her own words, “fiction is a good place to do activism.”
Award-winning author Barbara Neely presents the first in a series of novels featuring Blanche White, bla ck domestic worker extraordinaire and accidental sleuth. '
I’ve always adored mysteries. My dad has the entire collection of Agatha Christie books, but even before I read those, I worked through his ancient original hardbacks of Enid Blyton's Famous Fivebooks and the less well-known Malcolm SavilleLone Pineseries. I love getting totally engrossed in a series, so I really get to BE the main character–I am one of four siblings, and when I wasn’t too busy reading, we were the Famous Five. I was George. I think I still am, to be perfectly honest–she was fiery, passionate, loved her dog, and wanted to serve justice and out the bad guys. What a role model!
This whole series always makes me smile–Mma Ramotswe remains one of the most hilarious main characters in any cozy mystery I’ve ever read. The crimes she comes up against are usually low-key, usually secondary to the backdrop of Botswana, and often solved by accident as much as design.
Precious Ramotswe’s commentary on Botswanan life is simply brilliant, but almost even more amusing is her sidekick, Grace Makutsi, who bumbles through her role as secretary-promoted-to-assistant-detective, and the interaction between the characters never fails to give me laugh-out-loud moments.
This whole series has to be the most feel-good series ever, and now I’m rediscovering it as an audio production of the radio series; it’s as heart-warming as a bright bunch of flowers on a dull day, a bowl of hot soup when you’re sick; a hot bubble bath when it’s snowing outside…I love it, love it, love it!
Precious Ramotswe, a cheerful woman of traditional build, is the founder of Botswana's first and only ladies' detective agency. Here is a gentle interpretation of the detective role: solving her cases through her innate wisdom and understanding of human nature, she 'helps people with problems in their lives'. With a tone that is as elegant as that which is unfailingly used by his protagonist, Alexander McCall Smith tenderly unfolds a picture of life in Gaborone with a mastery of comic understatement and an evident sympathy for his subjects and their milieu. In the background of all this is Botswana, a…
I am a long-time writer and reader of mystery novels and short stories, but I have also written contemporary novels, scholarly work in history and culture, and history books. I am particularly interested in the psychology of crime and of detectives, and in each of the books I’ve recommended, the characters are drawn with unusual subtlety and depth or are interestingly eccentric. In addition, Vargas’s novels usually include interesting and little-known historical information, while Tallis’s Lieberman Papers series gives a lively picture of Vienna in its golden age of culture without neglecting the disquieting anti-Semitism and political unrest under the surface.
The chief attraction of Fred Vargas’s novels is her cast of characters, led by Chief Inspector Adamsberg, a most unconventional leader of any criminal investigation outfit. Small and disheveled, good with animals and children, dreamy and often seemingly idle, Adamsberg is not only extremely bright but has confidently surrounded himself with remarkable colleagues. Hard-drinking Adrien Danglard, a single father of five with a huge store of ready information, and Violette Retancourt, a woman of prodigious strength and courage, are among his entertaining subordinates, along with Snowball, the division’s cat that proves equally remarkable in one memorable outing.
Joss le Guern is a town crier in Paris's 14th arrondissement. He calls out the local news three times a day to all who will listen. Over the course of a few days, however, a number of enigmatic and disturbing messages are slipped in to the daily news, and he becomes increasingly alarmed. Superintendent Adamsberg is visited by an extremely troubled woman who has found strange marks on the door of her building: upside down 4s marked out in black paint. This, and the appearance of the frightening messages, are exactly the kind of mysteries Adamsberg loves. In the course…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
I am a long-time writer and reader of mystery novels and short stories, but I have also written contemporary novels, scholarly work in history and culture, and history books. I am particularly interested in the psychology of crime and of detectives, and in each of the books I’ve recommended, the characters are drawn with unusual subtlety and depth or are interestingly eccentric. In addition, Vargas’s novels usually include interesting and little-known historical information, while Tallis’s Lieberman Papers series gives a lively picture of Vienna in its golden age of culture without neglecting the disquieting anti-Semitism and political unrest under the surface.
Two reasons for this selection: the setting cosmopolitan pre- WW1 Vienna with its glittering art world, cutting edge science, and murky politics, and the unusual sleuth, Dr. Max Liebermann, a young disciple of Sigmund Freud, who is called upon by his friend, Oskar Rheinhardt for particularly sticky cases. There are plenty of them, thanks to author Tallis’s background as a clinical psychologist. He embeds gruesome crimes in complex plots and constructs solutions of real ingenuity, in parallel with young Dr. Liebermann’s developing expertise and his negotiation of the tricky balance between modernity, science, and progressive developments and his more traditional, and beloved, Jewish family.
The hit novels behind the major new TV series Vienna Blood ___________________________ Vienna, at the turn of the century.
Philosophy, science and art are flourishing. Coffee shops are full of the latest cultural and political theories. The new field of psychoanalysis, formed in the wake of Freud, is just beginning to make itself heard.
And a woman is dead.
Dr Max Liebermann is a young psychoanalyst, and friend to Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt. Rheinhardt, though hard-working, lacks Liebermann's insights and forensic eye - and so Liebermann is called upon to help with police investigations surrounding the death of a beautiful…
I have always had a strong, long-lived interest in all things Italian (including Italian food and wine). I spent my third year of university at a campus in Rome and travelled all over Italy during my year there. I’ve been back to Italy as a tourist and researcher numerous times, as five of my ten award-winning novels are set there (in Venice, Rome, Cremona, etc.). I have many Italian friends and my most recent novel,The Artist and the Assassin, is being translated into Italian and will be published by Les Flaneurs Edizioni, an Italian publisher in Bari, Italy.
The Monster of Florence is set in the famous Italian city of Florence (Firenze), as are all of Magdalen Nabb’s mysteries. She gives us fascinating insights into life in Florence, through the eyes of her detective, Marshall Guarnaccia. The Marshall is a very down-to-earth and believable character and does his best at trying to catch a serial killer on the loose in that part of Italy. The author takes the reader right inside life in Florence with a work that is entirely engaging and well-written.
Based on a chilling true crime, The Monster of Florence follows the reopening of a cold case—a serial killer who targeted unmarried couples and terrorized Florence for two decades.
Marshal Guarnaccia's job with the carabinieri—the local Florentine police—usually involves restoring stolen handbags to grateful old ladies and lost cameras to bewildered tourists. So when he is assigned to work with the police in trying to track down a vicious serial killer, he feels out of his league. To make matters worse, the Proc he must report to is Simonetti, the same man he knows drove an innocent man to suicide…
I spent my first seven years in Spain and Italy, devouring books and Italian food and still speak (or try!) my childhood languages. The Italian language and culture are precious to me—an integral part of my life. Our visits back to Italy, speaking Italian with friends, cooking Italian meals, writing for the Italian Language Foundation's website, and enjoying our community's Italian movie nights maintain my Italian experience. Sadly, I can't be in Italy all the time, but have found some fabulous books that take me right back! Il cuore e italiano—my heart is Italian.
This delightful mystery set in Florence not only intrigues the reader with its clever, twist-filled plot but also with its insights into daily life and culture in Italy. The characters are enjoyable and show many humorous and unique facts of Italian life. Nabb knows her Florence and her Italians, and her ability to describe both make a reader wish to accompany her on her next trip!
Introducing Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia of the Florentine carabinieri, a Sicilian stationed far from home. He wants to go south for Christmas to spend the holiday with his family, but he is laid up with the 'flu. At this awkward moment, the death of a retired Englishman is reported. A most inconvenient time for a murder case. Who has shot Mr Langley-Smythe in the back? And why has Scotland Yard felt it appropriate to send two detectives, one of whom speaks no Italian, to 'help' the marshal and his colleagues with their investigation? Most importantly for the marshal, ever the Italian,…
In 2038 a devastating pandemic sweeps across the world. Two decades later, Britain remains the epicenter for the Fornax variant, annexed by a terrified global community.
David Malik is as careful as any man to avoid contact with the virus. But when his sister tests positive as an asymptomatic carrier,…
Born into a family with friction between parents, I never thought relationships could get much worse. When my parents divorced, father became estranged, then died by apparent suicide, memoirs by diverse voices opened my world and made me feel less alone. When I went through a sexual and gender identity crisis of my own, they helped me navigate the turmoil in my own life. I spent more than twenty-five years writing professionally for corporate and academic employers before writing biography and memoir became a coping skill.
Preston and Spezi’s memoir helped me learn how to write from inside a murder investigation. I knew I needed to write about my father’s unusual death and my suspicions, but I didn’t have the tools to tackle it. The two journalists describe how they solved an infamous serial killer case only to become suspects themselves. Preston and Spezi drive their story with a momentum I tried to match in telling mine.
The Monster of Florence, which was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Gold Dagger Award for Non Fiction in 2010, is a true account of brutal serial murder in idyllic Florence. After settling in Italy in 2000, Douglas Preston discovered that the olive grove in front of his family's new home had been the scene of one of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer who had never been found and was known only as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, met Italian journalist Mario Spezi, who had followed the case since the first murders in…
From Taylor Swift to Lauryn Hill, from Joan Baez to Beyonce, I find that the lyrics, performances, and melodies of women making music inspire my own creativity every day. I am not a musician; I am a writer, editor, and novelist! But I find music to be so accessible, so deeply meaningful, in a way that other art forms, even my own, are not. So naturally, I adore novels about music!
I return to this book in my mind again and again, and quote it all the time! It’s a slim, sexy, romantic, philosophical novel set against the backdrop of a British woman’s eye (and heart)-opening trip to Italy.
At first, young Lucy Honeychurch plays the piano with unbridled passion and lives somewhat timidly. But with a little bit of love, and some beauty, can that change?
When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.
Lucy Honeychurch travels to Florence, Italy, with her cousin and they were assured they would receive a room with a view of the River Arno, but instead are given a room overlooking a dull courtyard. A one Mr. Emerson and his son George offer their room, which as the desirable view, to the two ladies. From this opening sequence, A Room with a View sets off following young Lucy as she navigates through…
Crystal King is the author of The Chef’s Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and was a Must-Read for the MassBook Awards. She is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at GrubStreet, Harvard Extension School, and Boston University, among others. She resides in Boston.
Nino Latino is the nephew of Fra Filippo Lippi, one of the greatest Florentine painters. For Nino, every taste brings a heightened connection to the people and places around him. He rises to culinary acclaim but it’s the forbidden hand of a woman that threatens to undo him. Appetite is a book to relish and devour.
Florence, 1466. A lust for life, a passion for power and a taste for adventure...
In Florence, everyone has a passion. With 60,000 souls inside the city, crammed into a cobweb of clattering streets, countless alleys, towers, workshops, tanneries, cloisters, churches and burial grounds, they live their lives in the narrow world between the walls. Nino Latini knows that if you want to survive without losing yourself completely, then you've got to have a passion.
But Nino's greatest gift will be his greatest curse. Nino can taste things that other people cannot. Every flavour, every ingredient comes alive for him…
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
I am an art historian from Rome and a professor at the University of Virginia, where I also served as associate dean for the arts and humanities and chair of the art department. Ever since as an undergraduate I heard a lecture from a professor on how important science was for Renaissance artists, I have been fascinated with this topic. I look at scientific images, such as maps and diagrams, as works of art, and interpret famous paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, as scientific experiments. Among my books are The Marvel of Maps: Art, Cartography and Politics in the Renaissance, The Shadow Drawing. How Science Taught Leonardo How to Paint, and the digital publication Leonardo da Vinci and His Treatise on Painting.
Most art in the Renaissance was commissioned by specific patrons and this book superbly illustrates the complex interaction among patron, artist, and society by focusing on the greatest patron of art and architecture in fifteenth-century Florence. Cosimo de’ Medici was the most powerful figure in the city’s political and economic life, a fabulously wealthy banker, a devout Christian, but he had also an impeccable nose for great art. With the help of about 200 images, the book examines the religious, personal, and dynastic motivations behind Cosimo’s artistic patronage, both his direct commissions for the Medici palaces, villas, and chapels as well as his active involvement in the works officially commissioned by the republic. What you’ll get out of this book is a profound understanding of how art was commissioned, created, and viewed in Renaissance Florence.
Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464), the fabulously wealthy banker who became the leading citizen of Florence in the fifteenth century, spent lavishly as the city's most important patron of art and literature. This remarkable book is the first comprehensive examination of the whole body of works of art and architecture commissioned by Cosimo and his sons. By looking closely at this spectacular group of commissions, we gain an entirely new picture of their patron and of the patron's point of view. Recurrent themes in the commissions-from Fra Angelico's San Marco altarpiece to the Medici Palace-indicate the main interests to which Cosimo's…
