Death of an Englishman by Arturo Soto

     Death of an Englishman

AUTHOR

Magdalen Nabb (16 January 1947- 18 August 2007) was a British author, best known for the Marshal Guarnaccia detective novels. She studied arts and pottery. In 1975 she moved to Florence with her son. There she continued to work on pottery in a pottery town near Florence and began writing. Her first book was Death of an Englishman. All her stories take place in Florence. In 1991 she won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. She died in Florence of a stroke, aged 60.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

It is a great book, I like it very much. If you like mystery books you will love it. It´s a bit difficult to understand all the words, but we can follow and understand the story.

 

SUMMARY

Carabiniere Bacci, a police officer, received a call early in the morning just before Christmas from the cleaner at Via Maggio 58. Bacci went to the building. Cipolla, the cleaner, said that he had found an Englishman called Langley-Smythe dead in his flat which was full of antiques. The Marshal was ill so he couldn´t go the crime scene, and he said that Cipolla´s wife died two days ago. Langley-Smythe came from an important family, so two English detectives arrived to help. Someone shot Langley once in the back, but a little girl said that she has heard two bangs: One bang was the shot and the other was a door. Miss White, another neighbour, told the police that Langley-Smythe moved very often the furniture, and there were lots of different fingerprints on the furniture, so Langley-Smythe was exporting antiques illegally. There was a neighbour that was an antique dealer called Signor Cesarini, and the police thought that he was also involved in the murder, because Bacci saw Cesarini in Langley-Smythe ´s flat with two other men, but the police didn´t find any proofs to involve him in the crime. Finally, the Marshal went to talk to Cipolla. Cipolla said that her wife was ill, and the doctors said that she was going to die, because the operation was very difficult and expensive. His wife was called Milena. She didn´t want to spend the rest of her life inside house, she wanted to work. Langley-Smythe took on Milena as a cleaner but Langley-Smythe didn´t pay Milena so Cipolla went to Langley-Smythe´s flat and killed him. The police arrested him. The next day the Marshal went to Sicily to spend Christmas with his family.

CHARACTERS

-The Marshal: He is ill in the bed with flu. He is a short and fat man with short hair. He is from Sicily and some policemen think that he is connected with the Sicilian Mafia

-Carabiniere Bacci: He is a young man. He is thin and he has a short black hair. He loves his job and he speaks a bit of English

-Cipolla: He is the cleaner where the Englishman died. He is short and he has a big moustache. His wife died some days before the Englishman died. He is a bit shy

-Miss White: She is a neighbor of the Englishman, and she is from England so she doesn’t speak Italian. She is the owner of a museum and she helped the police to resolve the case.

-Langley-Smythe: He is the victim of the murder. He was an old man with white hair. He was exporting antiques illegally.

Written by: Arturo Soto 1ºC