Vice, betrayal, botanicals and Blume

TURIN – “Bitter Remedy”, Conor Fitzgerald’s fifth book featuring Italian/American police commissioner Alec Blume, opens with Alec in a bad way.

 His frayed relationship with Catterina Mattiola, the recent birth of his son, problems with his new apartment and the demands of work have all taken their toll on Blume. Instructed by doctors to take a break, he books himself onto a new-age course in Bach flower remedies and heads off to Tuscany for some unlikely peace and quiet.

 His convalescence begins badly. He arrives at the beautiful but crumbling Villa Romanelli to begin his course but is told by the young and pretty course organizer, Silvana, that the retreat has had to be canceled due to a problem with the health and safety permits. Bored and frustrated, Blume eats some seeds from the garden of the villa which induce a mild heart attack and cause him to be rushed to hospital.

 News of Blume's illness travels fast, and before long the whole town knows there is a police commissioner from Rome in the small town of Monterozzo. This news prompts Silvana's boyfriend Niki to visit Blume in hospital. Niki is a similar age to Blume, but in much better health. Niki asks Alec for help locating a Romanian dancer called Alina who has recently gone missing from his seedy nightclub. To complicate matters Niki was cheating on Silvana with Alina before she disappeared. Blume takes an instant dislike to Niki and refuses to help him. He is suspicious of his motives and believes him to be a small town crook and whore monger, at best.

 But as Blume regains his health he finds himself slowly drawn into the case of the missing Alina. Outside of his usual surroundings of Rome, Alec works the case alone, telephoning his long-suffering on-again-off -gain partner Caterina when he needs information. As he struggles to regain his strength, he finds himself baffled by the strange world of Niki, Silvana and her father Domenico – who appears to have connections to Santa Corona Unita – a Mafia unit in Bari.

 It is a world that hides many dark secrets, and Blume slowly tries to join the dots between human trafficking, the disappearance of Alina, and a 22 year old missing persons case. In poor health and increasingly dependent upon medication, Blume tries to crack the case while wreaking havoc upon small town life in Monterozzo.

 The book's portrayal of human trafficking is detailed and disturbing. Fortunately, the heaviness of some of the chapters is offset by lighter touches offered by characters such as Francophone doctors and lazy public servants who provide a much welcome counterpoint to the dark and disorientating world that author Conor Fitzgerald has created.

 While the way the in which book does not opt for traditional good versus evil paradigms is highly satisfying, it does leave the dénouement slightly flat. The resolution of the crime offers both redemption and ruin and provides fans of the series with some fresh psychological insights into the novel's characters – in particular into the relationship between Blume and Caterina.

 In Blume, Fitzgerald has created a memorable detective who is flawed, detached and virtuous and the novel provides an insightful commentary on modern Italy. Through Blume Fiztgerald accurately captures the minutiae of Italian daily life in a way that will please Italophiles living in Italy or further afield.

Bitter Remedy by Conor Fitzgerald is published by Bloomsbury, 320 pages £9.95

Conor Fitzgerald has lived in the USA, UK and Italy – where he has been living since 1989. He previously worked to produce a newsletter on Italian affairs for foreign embassies in Rome, before the internet made him redundant. He now works as an author and translator. He is married with two children.