A few drops of blood

An “atmospheric mystery” featuring a female police captain in Naples, Italy (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

When the bodies of two men are found, shockingly posed, in the garden of an elderly countess, Capt. Natalia Monte of the Carabiniere is assigned the case. Soon she finds herself shuttling between Naples’s decadent art galleries and violent criminal underworld. If she is to succeed in solving the heinous crime, Natalia must deal with not only her own complicated past and allegiances, but also those of the city as a whole.

From the author of These Dark Things and starring a detective with “one foot solidly planted in law enforcement [while] the other dangles in her old Naples neighborhood, which is awash in organized crime,” A Few Drops of Blood is “highly recommended for police-procedural and international-crime-fiction readers” (Booklist).