ROMAN ROULETTE

The second installment in Downie’s thriller series features the famous catacombs of Rome.

During a gala performance at the Institute of America in Rome, a shot rings out and panicked figures in white tunics flee the catacombs under that institution’s grounds. The beautiful and resourceful Maj. Daria Vinci of DIGOS (think FBI), attending the gala, is immediately on the case. The dead man is Charles Wraithwhite, a charismatic fellow who was hired to write a postwar history of the institute in order to improve its shopworn image. Was this a suicide, an unfortunate outcome of Russian roulette, or something worse? Charles was not all that he seemed. Was he a threat to somebody? What about the longtime president of the institute—the slightly ghoulish, gaunt, and handsy Taylor Chatwin-Paine? Almost immediately, Daria’s well-fed sidekick, Capt Osvaldo Morbido, guesses that powerful people are obfuscating facts and pulling strings. Sure enough, he is ordered to return to Genoa, and Daria gets a surprise promotion and transfer to Venice, effective immediately. Will Daria attempt to solve the case from afar? Downie speaks Italian fluently and spent many years in Rome, and he clearly loves the city and the culture. This follow-up to Red Riviera (2021), the first in Downie's Daria Vinci Investigation series, abounds with quirky, memorable characters. In fact, the book is so overstuffed, the reader often feels at sea. And some trappings, though not red herrings, seem overdone and indulgent. Bags of jelly beans along with toy gladiator swords are hidden about, sending cryptic messages to those who can decipher them. One thinks of kids at summer camp concocting elaborate, esoteric stories to entertain themselves after they have tired of drawing treasure maps. But one does get a wonderfully detailed tour of Rome from someone who clearly loves it: “Eternal, the city was, a crazy, suffocating, miasmic, endearing enigmatic mess.” It is also, in Downie’s telling, a city that thrives on intrigue.

Though sometimes over-the-top, a treat for those who would love a Roman holiday.