January 1, 1987
Nabb's modest Florentine Marshal Guarnaccia makes his fifth appearance in this superb novel with fully realized characters and an engrossing mystery. Called upon to find a missing Swiss student, Monica Heer, by Elisabeth Stauffer, her nervous companion, Guarnaccia goes to a pottery center outside Florence, Monica's last known destination. Local policeman Marshal Niccolini helps the visiting detective interview the artisans, employees of a man called "Little Moretti,'' but nobody offers useful information. When the girl's body is found behind Moretti's factory, Guarnaccia focuses on clues in anonymous letters that hint at the source of Moretti's capital and his connection with the village's wealthiest man, who is accused of having betrayed the partisans to the SS during the Nazi occupation. By the time Guarnaccia dredges up submerged truths, both he and everyone else involved are profoundly affected by the case. Nabb enhances the story wtih descriptions of talented potters at work, some of whom raise the craft to an art, and with merry contrasts between the shy, quiet Guarnaccia and the bluff, ebullient Niccolini.