Rick Montoya has moved from New Mexico to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He's settling in to la dolce vita when a school friend who is now senior in the Italian Art Squad recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick would arrive in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery and flush out burial urn traffickers. But before sunset on Rick's first day in Volterra, a gallery employee dies in a brutal fall from a high cliff. The local Commissario and his team consider Rick an amateur, and worse, a foreigner. And now they suspect him in the dead man's murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick continues to interview his list: a museum director, a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, and a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele. When Rick's girlfriend Erica arrives from Rome to visit him, she rekindles a friendship with an alluring, maybe dangerous, acquaintance. Has Rick's role made him the target of both cops and criminals?

“Perfect for readers who enjoy a complex puzzle, a bit of humor, and a fairly gentle procedural. Don’t miss this one.” —Library Journal, starred review Rick Montoya has moved from New Mexico to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He’s settling in to la dolce vita when a school friend who is now senior in the Italian Art Squad recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick arrives in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a gallery, ready to spend his days sipping wine and examining Roman artifacts to flush out burial urn traffickers. But before sunset on Rick's first day in Volterra, a gallery employee dies in a brutal fall from a high cliff. The local Commissario and his team suspect Rick in the dead man's murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick investigates his own list of suspects: a museum director, a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, and a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele. But as the murder mystery and the art trafficking heat up, Rick's role makes him the target of both cops and criminals. Praise for Cold Tuscan Stone: “This is a wonderful start to a series, which should have immediate legs, and surely will thrill everyone who has lived in Italy, been to Italy, or would like to visit.” —Joseph Heywood, author of The Woods Cop Mysteries “The intriguing art milieu, mouthwatering cuisine, and the team of the ironic Conti and the bemused but agile Montoya are bound to attract fans.” —Publishers Weekly

"Like Cold Tuscan Stone, the novel is light on its feet, with a protagonist who will strike readers as a good guy to hang around with."—Booklist Perfect for readers of Donna Leon and Martin Walker, this thrilling addition to David Wagner's Italian mysteries immerses us in the sights, smells and tastes of Italy, this time in a picture-perfect Alpine town with a surprising dark side Rick Montoya is looking forward to a break from his translation business in Rome—a week of skiing in the Italian Alps with old college buddy Flavio. But Rick's success helping the Italian police with a murder in Tuscany sends the Campiglio cops his way. An American banker working in Milano is missing. The man's sister, an attractive and spoiled divorcée, has no idea where he could be, nor do the locals who saw him on his way to the slopes. With the discovery of a body, Rick and Inspector Albani widen their list of suspects. Picturesque resort Campiglio harbors old rivalries, citizens on the make, and a cut-throat political campaign. Why would these local issues connect to the missing banker? The investigation doesn't keep Rick and Flavio from enjoying perfect ski conditions in the Dolomites and glorious after-ski wines and bowls of fresh pasta. As for women—Rick has to wonder if the banker's sister is just hitting him up for information. The action heats up, testing laid-back Rick whose uncle, a Roman cop, keeps urging him to make the police his career. A murder in the Alps makes short work of translator Rick Montoya's vacation, and he soon finds himself entrenched in the investigation. But there's more to this picturesque community than meets the eye, and it'll take a thrilling chase to solve the case before anyone else gets hurt. Other books in the Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries: Cold Tuscan Stone Death in the Dolomites Murder Most Unfortunate Return to Umbria A Funeral in Mantova

Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites readers back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food, there and throughout Italy. Having spent her summers in Tuscany for the past several years, Frances Mayes relished the opportunity to experience the pleasures of primavera, an Italian spring. A sabbatical from teaching in San Francisco allowed her to return to Cortona—and her beloved house, Bramasole—just as the first green appeared on the rocky hillsides. Bella Tuscany, a companion volume to Under the Tuscan Sun, is her passionate and lyrical account of her continuing love affair with Italy. Now truly at home there, Mayes writes of her deepening connection to the land, her flourishing friendships with local people, the joys of art, food, and wine, and the rewards and occasional heartbreaks of her villa's ongoing restoration. It is also a memoir of a season of change, and of renewed possibility. As spring becomes summer she revives Bramasole's lush gardens, meets the challenges of learning a new language, tours regions from Sicily to the Veneto, and faces transitions in her family life. Filled with recipes from her Tuscan kitchen and written in the sensuous and evocative prose that has become her hallmark, Bella Tuscany is a celebration of the sweet life in Italy. Now with an excerpt from Frances Mayes's latest southern memoir, Under Magnolia.

This 1960s-era locked-room mystery takes Ellie Stone to Florence, Italy--a seemingly idyllic setting, which in this case has sinister undertones. Florence, Italy, August 1963. In Italy to accept a posthumous award for her late father's academic work, "girl reporter" Ellie Stone is invited to spend a weekend outside Florence with some of the scholars attending the symposium. A suspected rubella outbreak leaves the ten friends quarantined in the bucolic setting with little to do but tell stories to entertain themselves. Deciding to make the best of their confinement, the men and women spin tales, gorge themselves on fine Tuscan food and wine, and enjoy the delicious fruit of transient love. But the summer bacchanalia takes a menacing turn when the man who organized the symposium is fished out of the Arno. "Morto." As long-buried secrets rise to the surface, Ellie must figure out if one or more of her newfound friends is capable of murder.

A recipe-complemented work continues the author's tribute to the region of Tuscany and its people, tracing the course of a year during which she renovated a thirteenth-century house in the mountains above Cortona.

"This is a book for armchair travelers as much as it is for mystery lovers." --Publishers Weekly The body rolled off the planks and slipped into the water with barely a splash, quickly embraced by the steady current flowing toward the city of Mantova. It comes to rest against rocks overlooked by the grim ramparts of Castello di San Giorgio as the river Mincio flows on towards the Po and the Adriatic Sea. Lombardy was once hotly disputed by the cities of Venice and Milan. Today it is famed for its food rather than war. But the murder of the elderly fisherman, for so it proves to be, reveals battles still rage within the region's controlled agribiz, the manufacture of cheese and cured meats by generations of local families, as well as over the best use for a parcel of land owned by the victim, Roberto Rondini, and now passing to his heirs. Rick Montoya, an American from New Mexico self-employed as a translator in Italy, soon receives a call from the States. The US Embassy in Rome has recommended his services to wealthy Angelo Rondini, cousin to Roberto. Angelo, age seventy-eight and born in nearby Voglia, has been invited to the funeral by Roberto's daughter, Livia Guarino. Out of respect, Angelo has agreed to connect with the Italian family he hasn't seen since he was a very young boy. Rick hires on as interpreter. And soon receives another assignment--a local cop, Inspector Crespi, linked to Rick's uncle, Commissario Piero Fontana of the Roman Questura, leads the murder investigation and asks Rick to observe and report. Rick agrees, if Angelo accepts his working undercover. And so Rick once again puts his linguistic skills to use for the local law in solving a crime. Despite the joys and distractions of the city and its watery setting, its glorious art and architecture, and the temptations of the local cuisine and cheese culture, the investigation must probe the life of Roberto and the history of the Rondinis as well as the rivalries of the locals. Yet with all this on display, the story is stolen by two women: Angelo's American executive assistant, and Livia, the Rondini clan's new matriarch. David Wagner's Rick Montoya Mysteries will appeal to readers of Michael Dibdin, Donna Leon, and Martin Walker.