Armchair sleuthing, in crime and in art

I read mysteries, particularly ones that are have a strong sense of place. I’m very fond of two series set in Italy: Guido Brunetti of Venice (by Donna Leon; #1: Death at La Fenice) and Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen series (#1: Ratking). I’ve had a chance to visit that country, and I read both to get into a bit of the culture and atmosphere of old cities. They also speak to more modern conceits as the Mafia, government corruption, and how “business as usual” is different  than (and sometimes similar to)  where I live. I spent my tourist time in Florence, and those books helped me to visualize what it is like to live in places like Venezia, Siena or Firenze. Recently I read two non-fiction books that connected strongly with my memories of that trip to Italy. Pick one up, sit back with a vin santo to sip, and enjoy!

The monster of Florence / Douglas Preston, with Mario Spezi. New York : Grand Central Pub., 2008
New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston teams up with Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to present a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy. This is a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide–and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi are caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces … / Clark, Robert : Doubleday, c2008.
Ostensibly about the floods of 1966 that devastated so much of the cultural heart of Florence, Italy, it becomes a meditation on the relationship of a city to art and its inevitable conflicts with the river it embraces, and how the city and its art is perceived by the rest of the world.