BEST SERVED COLD

A reunion of old friends is marred by murder.

Translator Rick Montoya has just finished up an assignment in Palermo when he gets a call from his old fraternity brother Zeke Campbell. Zeke, who’s leading a tour of New Mexicans around Italy, hopes to reconnect with Rick in Rome. Since it will take Rick, son of a New Mexican father and a Roman mother, at least a day to get back to his adopted hometown, they agree to meet in Assisi, the tour’s next stop. Rick’s uncle, police commissario Piero Fontana, suggests that instead of Assisi, Rick might stay with his great-aunt Filomena in nearby Perugia to thank her for lending him her gracious apartment in Rome. Rick isn’t thrilled with the prospect of combining his time reliving his bright college years in Zeke’s company with a visit to an elderly widow, but he agrees. To his surprise and delight, Filomena turns out to be a lively, young-looking senior who dresses elegantly and loves fine food and wine. Unfortunately, the visit is cut short when Rick gets an urgent call from Zeke: Their tour guide has disappeared, and Zeke needs Rick to fill in. While staying at the hotel the tour has booked in Perugia, Rick tries to track down the slippery Ettore Biraldo, the tour guide, and when Biraldo meets his inevitable bad end, Rick helps the police track his killer. Meanwhile, Rick’s girlfriend, art investigator Betta Innocenti, is in Pisa on the trail of a pastel original that disappeared from a side chapel of Saint Ursula church. The only connection between Rick’s case and Betta’s is that both are solved mainly by chance.

Foodies and fans of rural Italy will like this better than mystery buffs.