An interview with the Bonnetti family confirms that it is, indeed, Mariella. Presumably, Mariella did not bury herself under six feet of earth, and since there is no time limit on murder, Thackeray is left to investigate a forty-five year old murder. Thackeray encounters a bit of luck in his investigation. His lover, Laura Ackroyd, has a grandmother, Joyce, who can provide some answers.

At the time of the Coronation, Joyce, a war widow, lived with her twelve-year-old son (Laura’s father) in a housing settlement near the site where the bones were discovered. She was acquainted with the Bonnettis. At present, Joyce has broken her leg and is convalescing in a nursing home. She suspects that someone might be trying to incapacitate her enough that she cannot talk, or, worse, kill her. Is Marietta’s killer still in the area trying to eliminate witnesses?

Patricia Hall has produced an intricately plotted puzzle with engaging characters in The Italian Girl, her latest offering in the Michael Thackeray/Laura Ackroyd series. If one is willing to accept the coincidence that the person with the most knowledge pertinent to the crime is a relative of the Chief Inspector’s lover, the rest of the plot development is logical and systematic. As in most police procedurals, various members of the police force contribute pieces of the puzzle which, fitted together, provide the solution.

The characters are well-drawn and believable. Although The Italian Girl is the sixth in the series, the book reads well without prior knowledge of the lives of the main characters. There are several references to occurrences in the earlier books which are intriguing enough to lure readers to search for these volumes.

Michael and Laura are by no means perfect people. They do things they later regret, making them logical subjects for empathy. Laura’s grandmother, Joyce is a delightful lady. Would that we all could have her spunk and vigor in our eighties.

The setting of a small English village is imminently suitable for the plot of the book. It is a bit of a stretch of one’s imagination to believe that Thackeray should immediately have such easy access to an important witness, but the fact that most of the principal players know each other is understandable considering the size of the town and the speed with which gossip is disseminated. The sentiments and prejudices of the townspeople are believable in that their contact with the people outside their small universe is limited, and the older generation had suffered the horrors of a war.

As a sidelight, Ms. Hall provides some well thought out criticism of care for the elderly and the mentally ill. Although her descriptions of The Laurels (a nursing home), and Long Moor (a mental hospital) might be a bit exaggerated, I suspect that some of the practices described may be closer to the truth than we would like to believe.

The Italian Girl is thoroughly enjoyable, but it has created another problem for me. Now I feel compelled to find and read the earlier books in the series to answer some questions about the main characters that came up in this book.

--Andy Plonka