THE MARSHAL'S OWN CASE
By
The sixth minimalist outing for Florence's Marshal Guarnaccia, whose life is more complicated than usual with his son Toto's truancy from school; his wife's insistence that he help find an old friend's son who has disappeared into the back streets of Florence; and his captain's assigning him to the murder of a beautiful woman--who turns out to have been a beautiful man, the transsexual whore Lulu, hated by all the ""girls"" she stole clients from as well as by the many clients she humiliated and scorned. Working with Ferrini, a street-wise cop, Guarnaccia gleans tips from Titi, Mimi, Gigi, Giulietta, and narrows the search for Lulu's killer to the man garishly dressed as ""Nanny"" in one of her snapshots. Meanwhile, the friend's son is hooked on drugs and more, and Guaenaccia is now backtracking on a request he had all but ignored: to find another woman's missing son. Slowly, methodically, Guarnaccia traces Lulu's little gifts from an admirer to this other missing (yet not-missed) son, who was in despair that Lulu would reveal his sexual preferences. A nonsensationalist's view of Florence's sexual buyers and sellers, with Nabb's usual Maigret-like touches, clearheadedness, and simple plotting.