The First Book in the Inspector Peroni Mystery Series — featuring the “Rudolph Valentino of the Italian police”.

Achille Peroni loves the spicy food and passionate arguments of southern Italy, land of his birth. But fate – and the Italian police force – have stuck him in Verona, a city of bean soup and endless problems with the Red Brigades, a vicious gang that relies on bombs and high-profile kidnappings to further its rather fuzzy political aims.

When a wealthy general, head of one of Italy’s finest Fascist families, goes missing from his palatial estate, the Reds are the most obvious suspects. But Peroni finds himself considering a crime far more subtle and sinister than anything the Reds can dream up. A crime, in fact, that leads all the way back to Romeo and Juliet, the most famous Veronese of them all.

“The characters are delightfully etched and Verona is bewitchingly presented…altogether excellent”

- Daily Telegraph (UK)

“The Montagues and Capulets return to life in a rich ambience of neo-Fascism, corruption and murder…stylishly done”

- The Observer(UK)