When the Sicilian Marshall first saw the Florentine idea of a football tournament over fifteen years before, it came as a shock. The parade beforehand in medieval dress provided a nice show, but the sheer brutal violence of what occurred on the field, in those same medieval costumes, left him horrified. This year, however, violence strikes off-field first, as a dwarf drags him away from the parade to deal with a dead man lying on the floor of his library. The chief public prosecutor is upstairs attending a private concert at his close personal friends’ residence when the Marshal arrives to inform the Marchesa that she is now a widow.  When the Marshal subsequently finds himself assigned to investigate a case that would normally be moved to Headquarters, he bitterly realizes the reason why. He’s a nobody.  Anything awkward—such as an insistence that the death was not just an unfortunate accident—can be hushed up and ignored. If the Marshal doesn’t like it, well, nobodies can easily be transferred elsewhere.

Once again the author leads the reader into the Florence of those who live there, a very different world from the Uffizi Palace of the tourist guides. It’s filled with memorable characters and equally memorable subplots around their lives, including the Marshal’s own.  While the Marshal and Maigret are very different people, except perhaps in physique, and Simenon’s classic stories are set in France rather than Italy, there’s a similar enjoyment to be found in these beautifully written tales.  Not surprisingly, the late Ms. Nabb and Simenon shared a mutual respect.

Highly recommended.