MURDER IN AN ITALIAN CAFÉ

A young widow finds adventure on the beautiful Amalfi Coast.

It was Bria Bartolucci’s dream to run a B&B in beautiful Positano with her husband, Carlo. After he dies in a plane crash, she honors his memory by opening Bella Bella as planned, showing her young son, Marco, that it’s “better to confront a challenge than to cower from one.” Maybe it’s her love of challenges that leads Bria to probe the death of Luigi “Chef Lugo” Gordonato, who dies suddenly while filming a TV show at the cafe owned by her friend Annamaria. Or maybe it’s her friendship with handsome police chief Luca Vivaldi, her best friend Rosalie’s brother. There’s no dearth of clues—from notes crammed into fake cannoli to mysterious women canoodling with the victim-to-be on the beach, Bria’s got plenty to work with. But the sheer density of details weighs down what could have been a lighthearted frolic in a spectacular setting. After the long climb up the stairs to Bella Bella, Rosalie has an asthma attack, and it takes four paragraphs to get her breathing regularly again. Bria’s handyman replaces a tile “that had broken, thanks to the overgrown roots of an overzealous lemon tree.” It’s hard for readers to tell what’s a clue and what’s just a display of adjectival exuberance, and in either case, their reaction is likely to be relief that it’s finally over.

Too many subplots, too many distractions, even too much pastry.