Three-card monte

This new novel by Marco Malvaldi marks the return of the investigative quartet nicknamed the senile squad.

At the Bar Lume, with the exception of the bartender Massimo and his assistant, the beautiful Tiziana, the youngest regular is Aldo, seventy-something owner of the Osteria Boccaccio.

The principal, indeed the only activity, in which the septua- and octogenarians engage in is sitting around at the Bar Lume playing cards and analyzing, postulating, gossiping, and chronicling every event that occurs in their small Tuscan town, their talk laced with colorful Tuscan slang and figures of speech.

Massimo, all intuition but tending toward inaction, is obliged to investigate a homicide.

The old-timers provide a running commentary and play devils advocate to any and all theories concerning the perpetrators of the crime in question.

Their cunning at three-card monte has taught them how to see past to the truth that lies beneath appearances.

A comedy, a beguiling mystery, and a vivacious portrait of small-town Italy all wrapped into one.