"A wonderfully detailed treat!" Kirkus Reviews David Downie's Long Awaited ROMAN ROULETTE
The American book review magazine and cultural gatekeeper Kirkus Reviews raves about David Downie's new thriller, Roman Roulette, calling it "a wonderfully detailed treat" all while praising it as not just a remarkable thriller but a loving tour of Rome and Italian culture.
Roman Roulette is the continuation of Det. Daria Vinci's adventures first explored in Downie's Red Riviera. A new scene, a new adventure, a new case, follow the intrepid detective to the stunning conclusion of this riveting murder mystery.
For Commissioner Daria Vinci, it was supposed to be a night off, attending a benefit concert for the Institute of America in Rome. But little did the Institute’s wealthy, distinguished guests know that beneath their feet, in the ancient catacombs, a very different kind of gathering was being held. One that would end in murder…
Red Riviera, the first Daria Vinci Investigation, was set on the Italian Riviera. In Roman Roulette, the glamorous and high-principled police commissioner of DIGOS, Italy’s FBI, must investigate what at first seems a simple case of suicide and in so doing attracts the attention of her boss, the Questor of the Province of Rome. He wants her off the case. Why? Suddenly, Commissioner Daria Vinci must solve the murder in 36 hours, while risking her career and, possibly, her life.
ASP Author’s Gift Guide for Book Lovers (PART 2)
Gift guide part 2 features Mysteries, Travel Writing, and Books about Northern California.
ASP Authors’ Gift Guide for Book Lovers
Well, it’s that time of year again, when holiday gift lists are popping up all over. Here at ASP HQ, we’re particularly interested, of course, in gifts for book-lovers, and we’ve noticed a curious fact: No matter how diverse the sources of these lists, a few titles pop up again and again. Usually these are recently published, widely reviewed best-sellers. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, gift-givers might find themselves putting one more copy of the current hot mystery, or history, or memoir under a book-loving friend’s tree.
Featured Poetry: “Burial at Shanidar” by Elizabeth Hazen
This is no modern tradition, says Elizabeth Hazen. It is not only now that humans ornament their dead with flowers. “See,” she says in her rumination on tradition and humanity, Burial at Shanidar, “Even from a distance we dream of gardens where there should be stone.” And on Christmas especially, it is so wonderful to curl up with a book of poetry, even to read out-loud to one’s family, and bask in the ways we make words, just like the long winter days of dark, meaningful with light and tradition.