There is a fine tradition in crime fiction where the protagonist finds him or herself dutifully trying to solve a riddle in adverse circumstances. It’s the “fish out of water” convention that I employ for my own series and, more specifically, I’ve always believed that one of the best ways to place additional burdens and stressors on a fictional detective is to have them ply their trade in a foreign land. There, the poor soul is not only up against a dastardly crook or murderer, but also has to conquer strange customs, distrustful locals, unknown foods, and very often a foreign language.
Little surprise, then, that many crime writers have dropped their American protagonists in Europe, producing some of the best fiction of both the past and the present. Traveling across the pond is not on anyone’s calendar right now, so instead of dusting off your passport and booking your plane ticket, maybe you can dip into one of these novels to get your fix Euro-excitement.
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
Setting: Italy
Let us start at the top. If you’ve not read Highsmith’s classic then I recommend you stop what you’re doing right now, and add this book to the very top of your TBR stack. As good as the film is, the novel is a masterpiece of psychological suspense, with vivid portrayals of Italy and featuring characters you won’t soon forget.
The premise: Tom Ripley is enamored with living the good life and takes full advantage when a wealthy father offers to send him to Italy to look for his slacker son, Dickie. Tom and Dickie become friends, living off the father’s money… until they don’t. One of the finest sociopath’s in crime fiction, Tom Ripley has rightfully inspired several generations of authors, including me, to create characters that are believable, frightening, and somehow worth rooting for.
The Expats, Chris Pavone
Setting: Luxembourg
A more modern novel, and this one set in a place not exactly known for thrills and spills: Luxembourg. In fact, I went there not long ago planning to set part of my newest Hugo Marston book there but found it to be so clean, so beautiful, so gosh darned nice that I couldn’t bring myself to sully the place with any murder or mayhem.
Pavone, on the other hand, does so and quite masterfully. His protagonist is an American woman called Kate Moore who is brought overseas by her husband—to lovely Luxembourg—only to find her life boring and unfulfilling. Which, you know, kind of tallies with my experience there. One big difference: I’m a mere writer and prosecutor, this woman used to be a CIA assassin. The book is packed with the contradictions of everyday life running into secrecy and danger. As Goodreads puts it: “a complex web of intrigue where no one is who they claim to be, and the most profound deceptions lurk beneath the most normal-looking of relationships; and a mind-boggling long-play con threatens her family, her marriage, and her life.”
And yes, it’s as good as that sounds.
Murder in G Major, Alexia Gordon
Setting: Ireland
The land of rolling green fields, steep cliffs, and Guinness. And, from time to time, an American needing to use his nouse to solve a crime or two. Alexia Gordon has, for your reading pleasure, a wonderful series of novels that will take you to Ireland. This is the first in the series, and rightly won the Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best New Novel, and was selected one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Debuts.
Her protagonist is African-American classical musician Gethsemane Brown who, in this book, accepts a less-than-ideal position turning a group of rowdy schoolboys into an award-winning orchestra. Stranded without luggage or money in the Irish countryside, she figures any job is better than none. The perk? Housesitting a lovely cliffside cottage. The catch? The ghost of the cottage’s murdered owner haunts the place. Falsely accused of killing his wife (and himself), he begs Gethsemane to clear his name so he can rest in peace. As you would expect, and hope, Gethsemane’s investigation revives a dormant killer and she soon finds herself in grave (geddit?!) danger….
Switcheroo, Aaron Elkins
Setting: Channel Islands
Edging away from the more glamorous locations, you might want to test your metal with a visit to the chilly and wind-swept Channel Islands (well, they were when I went camping there as a cub scout in the last century). If so, Aaron Elkins has you covered with Switcheroo, the latest in his series of novels featuring forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver—the ‘Skeleton Detective’.
This is his most recent book and begins when a cold case dating from the 1960s draws forensic anthropologist Oliver to the Channel Islands examine the mysterious connection between two men who died there on the same night. Swapped as young boys by their fathers during the Nazi occupation, wealthy Roddy Carlisle and middle-class George Skinner had some readjusting to do after the war ended—but their lives remained linked through work, trouble with the law, and finally, it would seem, through murder. Nobody expects that Gideon’s modern-day investigation will turn up fresh bodies but old bones tell many tales, and the Skeleton Detective has to be at his sharpest to piece together the truth before the body count mounts still higher.
Turn to Stone, James Ziskin
Setting: Italy
Although writing has been hard for many of us during this pandemic, I have managed to refocus some energy learning a new language—Italian. I’m six months in and cruising, except that my family has declared next year’s vacation will now be to Morocco, and not Rome as we’d previously agreed. I hope they are trolling me. Anyway, I shall be paying Italy a visit thanks to James Ziskin’s latest Ellie Stone mystery because, as I happily confess, I have read every book in this series and love them all.
Normally, this series wouldn’t make an international list like this because protagonist Ellie Stone lives in upstate New York. However, in this book she makes the trip to Florence, Italy to accept a posthumous award for her late father’s academic work. I asked James why he wanted to set a book there, and he said this: “For thirty years, I’ve wanted to write a book set in Italy, ever since my graduate school days. I studied Italian and French, lived and worked in both countries. Florence has been a second home to me, and I wanted to share my feelings for that special place.” Sounds reasonable to me.
As for the story, it goes something like this: It’s September 1963 and Ellie Stone is in Florence to attend an academic symposium honoring her late father. Just as she arrives on the banks of the Arno, however, she learns that her host, Professor Alberto Bondinelli, has drowned in the river under suspicious circumstances. Then a suspected rubella outbreak leaves Ellie and nine of the symposium participants quarantined (oh, how prescient, Mr. Ziskin!) in a villa outside the city with little to do but tell stories to entertain themselves. Making the best of their confinement, the men and women spin tales and gorge themselves on fine Tuscan food and wine until the quarantine can be lifted. And as they do, long-buried secrets about Bondinelli rise to the surface, leaving Ellie to figure out if one or more of her companions is capable of murder.
Solemn Graves, James R. Benn
Setting: France
Now, let’s go back even further in time because, well, who doesn’t love a World War two mystery? This one comes from James Benn and you have fifteen to choose from, set in England, Italy, North Africa… and this one in France. I chose this series because of the extra frisson of danger and hostility that comes with the Billy Boyle series: He’s a Boston detective with Republican Irish leanings taken to war (to protect and defend those awful English!) and every book comes with a new scrape.
In this one, it’s July 1944, a month after D-Day. Billy is assigned to investigate a double murder, close to the front lines in Normandy. An American officer and a member of the French Resistance were found dead in a manor house outside the town of Trévières. The investigation is shrouded in secrecy and features a 1,000-man unit with a unique mission within the US Army: to impersonate other US Army units in order to deceive the enemy, causing them to think they were facing large formations (they called themselves The Ghost Army) creating deceptions by radio traffic, dummy inflatable vehicles, and sound effects.
The King’s Justice, Susan Elia MacNeal
Setting: England
Let’s stay in World War Two for a series that many people know about, and that deserves mentioning to those who do not. This is the latest in Susan’s series featuring the delightful, and brilliant, Maggie Hope, who grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. For this series, though, she buzzes in and around London, working her way upward from secretary to secret agent/spy. All of the novels are stellar, but I’ve included this one because of this premise:
Could a stolen violin be linked to a serial killer terrorizing London during World War II? I mean, come on—a stolen violin, London, WW2, and a serial killer? I’m all in.
And in case you’re dithering, here’s a little more:
It’s London, December, 1942. Shaken by a recent case, Maggie finds herself living more dangerously—taking more risks than usual, smoking again, drinking gin and riding a motorcycle—and the last thing she wants is to get entangled in another crime. But when she’s called upon to look into a stolen Stradivarius, one of the finest violins ever made, Maggie finds the case too alluring to resist. Meanwhile, there’s a serial killer on the loose in London and Maggie’s skills are in demand. Little does she know that in the process of investigating this dangerous predator, she will come face to face with a new sort of evil…and discover a link between the precious violin and the murders no one could ever have expected.
Plaid and Plagiarism, Molly MacRae
Setting: Scotland
Let us remain in the British Isles, but head north to Scotland for this cozy mystery book and series. Our protagonist is a retired American librarian Janet Marsh who has bought a bookshop on Scotland’s west coast, along with three other women. Deadly shenanigans ensue, as you’d imagine. When I asked Molly why she chose that locale to set the series, she said: “I lived in Scotland in the mid-70s, as a student at Edinburgh University. This series is my way of going back to a place I love and can’t get to often enough in real life.” I have long said to my friends who set books in upstate New York (looking at you, Ziskin) or east Texas: there’s a jolly good reason so many of us set our books abroad—research! Anyway, on to the story….
This is the first in the popular series and is set in the weeks before the annual Inversgail Literature Festival in Scotland. It starts with our protagonist Janet Marsh being told she’ll have to wait before moving into her new home. Then she finds out the house has been vandalized. Again. The chief suspect? Una Graham, an advice columnist for the local paper—who’s trying to make a name for herself as an investigative reporter. When Janet and her business partners go looking for clues at the house, they find a body—it’s Una, in the garden shed, with a sickle in her neck.
Who wanted Una dead? After discovering a cache of nasty letters, Janet and her friends are beginning to wonder who didn’t, including Janet’s ex-husband. Surrounded by a cast of characters with whom readers will fall in love, the new owners of Yon Bonnie Books set out to solve Una’s murder so they can get back to business.
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