I am delighted to be leading off the blog tour for Rosaria Giorgi’s debut novel – a thriller set in Italy in Denmark involving art theft! Italy and art are two of my favourite things, and I love thrillers, so I sat down to read the book with great anticipation, especially having received a lovely gift box from Rosaria’s publicists, Midas PR. Posh choc, an Italian marbled book mark and a antiqued brass key were presented in a wooden box (which will become my new bookmark store), alongside a message in a bottle from Rosaria. Thank you!
Now when Midas had pitched the book to me to review, a big fuss was made of the ‘Umbrella Assassin’ and that the novel was by the woman who knew him. Intriguing no? You may not recall the murder of Giorgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident writer who had defected to the UK. In 1978, he was stung by something while walking across London Bridge – he died four days later – he reported seeing a man pick up an umbrella. It was assumed that he’d been shot with a pellet containing the deadly ricin from an umbrella. An attempt on another Soviet dissident had tried earlier in Paris. The papers reported that the hitman was likely to be an Italian, who was openly living in Denmark posing as an art dealer and never admitted any involvement.
You’ll notice that the book cover does feature an umbrella. It turns out that Rosaria, an Italian, studying in Denmark, unbeknowst went to work for him, and he is obviously the inspiration for one of this novel’s main characters, as Rosaria’s protagonist Pico is based on her own experience of that job.
We begin with a prologue in which Antonio Bartram is musing about Pico della Rosa, the language student friend of Leo’s he was going to offer a job to, a job needing the whole summer, that was most important. He’s fiddling with an umbrella as he muses. Then we turn to the main narrative as told by Pico.
It began when my friend Leo told me about the job. He knew a man, he said, who had once studied to be a Catholic priest and was now an antique dealer. The man had told Leo he wanted to hire students for well-paid part-time jobs working in his warehouse.
[…]
‘You would be perfect for it. Even if you know nothing about antiques, at least you can pretend in ten different tongues.’ He held my eyes with a cherubic smile.
Pico, a twenty-one-year-old Tuscan, made friends with a Danish lady who had rented the house next door one summer at her grandparents. Suzanne and Pico stayed in touch, and Pico had fallen in love with Copenhagen when she visited. One scholarship later, Pico is studying there and lodging with Suzanne and her cat Marcello. Leo lives on the same street, so they were bound to meet.
She is pleasantly surprised when she meets Antonio too, tall, thin, dressed in black with melancholy eyes which, ‘every time he smiled or laughed, the merriment didn’t reach his eyes.’
Antonio starts telling her about some of the pieces in his huge warehouse, including a large collection of antique keys. She finds it fascinating and he is a great teacher. Antonio’s clients don’t come to the warehouse itself, his business is mainly done elsewhere or over the phone. So one of Pico’s tasks is to answer the phone and being good at languages with the worldwide clients, so she finds herself speaking Italian to the mysterious Signor Catania.
Antonio and Pico travel to Sweden to attend an auction, and Antonio introduces Pico to Elsa, who runs a bakery nearby the auction house where he parks! Pico is sure there is more than just a customer becoming a good friend to their relationship? Antonio is a complicated man!
It was on this trip that he told Pico about the stolen Caravaggio – an art theft that really happened. ‘The Nativity’ had hung above the altar in St Joseph’s in Palermo, Sicily, but was stolen in 1969. It has never been recovered, and it has been assumed the the Mafia were responsible. But what if there was another possibility to its disappearance? Rosaria has made Antonio obsessed by the theft, and when he doesn’t return from one of his business trips, leaving some cryptic messages, Pico can only assume that the Caravaggio has something to do with him being missing.
As uni finishes and Pico is left to mind the warehouse all by herself, she starts trying to unravel Antonio’s secrets with Leo’s help hoping to find him, for she’s rather taken with the enigma that is Antonio Bartram. His shady lawyer is a hindrance rather than a help, but as she digs and decodes the quest will take her back to Malmo, down to Rome and the Vatican, and along the Italian Riviera, mixing with increasingly higher up dodgy types. Her help had been enlisted in translating and authenticating some antique documents. This last meeting takes place in the fortress villa of an art collector who must surely be a top mafioso, in Fiesole, a picturesque little town with super Roman ruins outside Florence.
As an aside, I’ve been to Fiesole, (back in 1998) and then it was a lovely little town basking in the sunshine of the Florentine hills, a quick bus ride away from the city. There is a big five star hotel in a medieval villa (where Sting, or was it Mick Jagger?!) had stayed the week before apparently which could be the model for the building in the book. When I went it was early November, sunny, and the Roman ruins were very quiet with gorgeous views and little museum was lovely too. Anyway back to the book after that interlude!
Pico is finding herself willing to risk everything to save Antonio, and it’s clearly a matter of time, hoping he’s still alive. As she uncovers the layers of secrets, and things begin to fall into place, the risk gets higher still, and there is a moral quandary at the heart of the missing art dealer too which has to be addressed – or does it? We’re all on Antonio’s side by now anyway. Not all the questions this story raises will get answered, some need further pondering! As for the umbrella, I shall stay schtum!
The novel, having begun at a leisurely pace, as we get to know Pico and Antonio, ends at a breakneck one, maybe a little too fast. Pico, grows from carefree student into someone willing to take on a Mafia boss! She has back-ups behind her though, she is definitely not on her own. The author cleverly never tells us where the stolen painting is nor confirms who currently has it in the novel, perhaps leaving the door open for a sequel? Pico definitely has another art theft case in her, enjoying learning the business so much. She is a great character, and with friend Leo in tow will doubtless get into more tricky situations.
A very enjoyable read, with gorgeous locations, architecture and more art and antiques than you could imagine.
Source: Review copy ARC – thank you! Troubador hardback, 245 pages. Jan 2025. BUY at Amazon UK or Blackwell’s via my affiliate links.
