I found a new fictional private detective, Alec Blume, of the Rome Police. He was born an American to two academics who moved to Rome temporarily when he was just a kid. While there his parents were brutally murdered. He doesn’t really have any family or friends in the States that will take him so ends up staying in Rome making his own way and eventually becomes a police inspector. Very interesting. The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald is the first in a new series of books to feature Alec Blume.

The book starts with the very grisly, amateurish, murder of the husband of a prominent Italian politician. Alec Blume is called to lead the investigation and immediately runs into roadblocks put up by the upper management of the police. The result is a very gritty fast paced novel. It of course involves the Italian police and judicial system which is fascinatingly different from what we have in the US.

I found the novel fascinating. I read most of it on the beach on vacation on my Kindle. I rate it four stars out of five overall, five stars out of five for a beach read.