Praise for Grace Brophy: “It’s not often that an author’s first book wins the coveted Tip of the Ice Pick Award.”— BookPage “Believable narrative twists combined with excellent characterization, rich dialogue and a finely depicted setting.”— Publishers Weekly “A terrific Italian historical police procedural.”— Midwest Book Review In the peaceful Umbrian village of Paradiso, the shocking murder and mutilation of an elderly German woman is barely credible. That is, until Inspector Alessandro Cenni of the State Police discovers that this retired cultural attaché was not just a difficult tenant, but also a bisexual swinger with an African lover recently in residence, as well as a blackmailer. The dead woman grew up in occupied Venice, and some of her secrets may have been acquired that long ago, during World War II. And the bucolic village is not that innocent: It was the site of a famous, scandalous murder fifty years earlier. Cenni’s boss wants a scapegoat, and the young African lesbian is the obvious target, but Cenni cannot bring himself to close a case without solving the crime and bringing the actual perpetrator to justice. Grace Brophy , a native of New Jersey, lived in Umbria for many years. She now resides in Maine. The Last Enemy , her debut novel, featuring Inspector Cenni, was published to acclaim. Commissario Alessandro Cenni, on the outs with his superiors, has a chance to escape the hinterlands and return to Perugia, in the heart of his beloved Umbria, but only if he can solve the murder of retired German diplomat Jarvinia Baudler. The game plan is to arrest the young African woman who was Baudler’s lover, but Cenni quickly sees that the case is more complicated than that: Baudler was a multitasking blackmailer, putting the sting on a plethora of former lovers, neighbors with secrets, and even her employers at the German embassy. Cenni and his no-nonsense colleague, Elena Ottaviani, sort through the suspects and deal with sundry personal issues involving her marriage and his obsession with his college lover, who was kidnapped more than 20 years ago. Brophy not only has found in Umbria a fresh setting for Italian crime fiction but she has also created a character in Cenni, who combines the beguiling personal flaws, slumbering sex appeal, and mysterious detachment of David Hewson’s Leo Falcone and Nic Costa. Readers bitten by the Italian crime bug are sure to succumb to Cenni’s charms. --Bill Ott Grace Brophy grew up in New Jersey and now divides her time between New York, Maine, and a village in Umbria. She is the author of The Last Enemy, the first novel in the Inspector Cenni series. Used Book in Good Condition