"On her sixtieth birthday, Auntie Poldi retires to Sicily, intending to while away the rest of her days with good wine, a view of the sea, and few visitors. But Sicily isn't quite the tranquil island she thought it would be, and something always seems to get in the way of her relaxation. When her handsome young handyman goes missing--and is discovered murdered--she can't help but ask questions. Soon there's an investigation, a smoldering police inspector,...

After his three-year exile in Sicily, Michael Corleone is charged to return to America with Salvatore Giuliano, a young Sicilian bandit whose activities have angered the head of the Sicilian Mafia.

The novel is a chronicle of fifty years of the Risorgimento, the Italian Unification's effect on Sicily, dating from Garibaldi's landing on the island in 1860 to the final decline of a once-opulent Sicilian family. The book represents a variation on the historical novel, in that it permits the present to intrude into the past--the omniscient narrator hints at what will happen after the story is finished. The protagonist is Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince...

"#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline presents Loyalty, an emotional, action-packed epic of love and justice, set during the rise of the Mafia in Sicily"-- "Loyalty can save a soul--or destroy one. Franco Fiorvanti is a handsome laborer toiling on the estate of a baron. He dreams of owning a lemon grove, but the rigid class system of Sicily thwarts his ambition. When the baron asks him to kidnap a little boy, Franco makes a decision that will change...

Inspector Montalbano is investigating the murder of a disfigured corpse found in a dinghy in the port of Vigáta, Italy, and a luxury yacht with a shady crew docked near may have some answers.

"Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call, but this time it's not Catarella announcing a murder, but a man called Riccardino who's dialed a wrong number and asks him when he'll be arriving at the meeting. Montalbano, in irritation, says: "In ten minutes." Shortly after, he gets another call, this one announcing the customary murder. A man has been shot and killed outside a bar in front of his three friends. It turns out to be the same man who...

"Though written at the end of the first half of the twentieth century this is essentially a nineteenth century novel written with a twentieth century sensibility. A few things give it away as a twentieth century novel - regular trains, even to remote rural areas, and a gramophone as well as the fact that, unlike most nineteenth century novels, none of the main characters survives unscarred. Indeed, most of them die, usually relatively unpleasant deaths....

"In this grand part one of a two-volume saga, inspired by the real lives of history-making titans, The Florios of Sicily brings to life the dark secrets, the loves and betrayals, and the cruel acts of revenge that marked the Florios' century of influence. They were the uncrowned kings of Sicily: restless and ambitious, single-minded and determined to be richer and more powerful than anybody else. Yet their beginnings were humble. Vincenzo, who lost...

"Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie's death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara's great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch...

A rash of burglaries has got Inspector Salvo Montalbano stumped. The criminals are so brazen that their leader, the anonymous Mr. Z, starts sending the Sicilian inspector menacing letters. Among those burgled is the young and beautiful Angelica Cosulich, who reminds the inspector of the love-interest in Ludovico Ariosto's chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso. Besotted by Angelica's charms, Montalbano imagines himself back in the medieval world of jousts...