Intrigue in Italics

In her third adventure, librarian-turned-travel-bookstore-owner Claire Gulliver joins her mother, Millie, and her mother’s friend, Ruth, in Italy. Claire intends to “do” Florence while they attend a prestigious cooking school in the hills of Tuscany before they all meet up again in Venice before going home.

Unfortunately, on her first day in Florence, tired, hot, waiting on the curb to cross a busy street, she locks eyes with a passing cyclist. Imagine her pleasure at recognizing a friend so far from home. But after the cyclist averts her head and passes Claire realizes it couldn’t have possibly been her friend because only last year she had attended this friend’s funeral.

In spite of her mother’s warning as she leaves for her cooking school to let it be, or perhaps because of it, Claire adds one more item to her To Do list: tracking down the person she saw on the street and establishing without a doubt it is not her friend.

Meanwhile, Millie and Ruth join a diverse group of chefs in the picturesque countryside to learn to cook Italian under the direction of famous chef, Jean Claude Martin. But somehow amidst this satisfying environment of creating new dishes, exploring local wineries and food markets, disturbing incidents occur which seems strangely out of place. Italian cuisine turns out to be more dangerous than anyone expected.

Once more Claire becomes involved in intrigue while her mother finds herself embroiled in her own exciting adventure. They each take comfort in thinking the other is safely involved in innocuous pursuits, but they are both wrong.