No not me, but a series of books. Readers may remember my first Italian trip was as a spectacularly unsuccessful au pair, paired with a family of four: two vegans, one alcoholic and one nymphomaniac – or so others described them. The vegan part was accurate.
And the second visit was as part of my world trip, which was a self-indulgent history and archaeology itinerary, although a large part of Roman history seemed to be undergoing restoration eg Trajan’s Column and the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. My hist/arch interest fits nicely with the first book in this series which involves archeology in Rome. I like reading stories set in places I’ve visited, although I’ve not been underground in Rome.
Roma, Underground by Gabriel Valjan
This starts off the Roma series which centres on a strong heroine with a background as a financial investigator for a covert US organisation, Rendition. Wonder how many there are in reality?
Alabaster Black becomes Bianca Nerini in Rome when she chucks the covert firm and gives herself a new life. She meets Dante, an amateur underground archaeologist, who also works as a financial investigator and they team up to try and solve the problem of Rome’s disappearing artefacts.
This is another book with foreign language phrases scattered around and luckily, for the most part, they aren’t followed by a literal translation. I mean, does anyone really need Importazione/Exportazione translating? Or bistecca? Speaking of steak, there are lots of mouthwatering foody references in this book, so not one to read when you are hungry. Probably explains why I made lasagna after I read the book.
The relationship between Bianca and Dante is nicely low key, concentrating on their investigation rather than anything else, and the interaction with Dante’s colleague Alessandro and their boss Gennaro is good too. It’s an interesting plot, and combined with plausible characters, food snippets, some history, and a great location, it makes for a good read.
Travelogue interlude …
Wasp’s Nest
So then, it was onto the second in the series, Wasp’s Nest, and Bianca has returned to Boston and her previous life as Alabaster, lured back by Rendition to work on a case she can’t resist. She’s chucked her boyfriend Dante, left her friends, and new life behind to work for the dodgy firm again. Bizarre.
The lure in this story, is for Bianca to apply her skills to a firm doing research into wasp genome-mapping. Or something like that. Meanwhile two of her Italian pals – although not Dante – come to Boston, hot on the trail of the assassin who killed Gennaro’s wife years ago. And, the men behind the artefact scam she worked on in Rome are due for trial in Boston. So it’s all pulled together very neatly with some of the former main characters, and some new ones.
We learn more about Bianca, seeing the good and the not-so-good side of her. Gennaro pals up with a cynical honest American police officer, corruption abounds, and there is quite a body count. As light relief, Bianca befriends a struggling but talented chef, so our team of honourable misfits use the restaurant as their meeting place, with the chef cooking special meals for them, so there are more yummy foody references (yummy for non-vegetarians that is).
With the exception of the struggling chef, who Bianca helps financially, I don’t understand what all these men see in this woman apart from her brains. Because she’s not very personable or considerate in her relationships.
Threading the Needle
Bianca’s inability to trust starts off book three of the series, Threading the Needle, set in Milan.
She can’t resist dabbling and hacking and finds herself looking at an arms manufacturer with a secret project. Most arms projects probably are secret, I guess.
Her Italian pals with the financial investigation team from Rome have been despatched to Milan, so we have the same team, different plot, different location. Add into the puzzle of the dodgy armaments manufacturers, the ruthless murder of a young American student and an up-and-coming popular Communist leader, who is gay and Catholic, disturbing the political scene, and throw in the usual corruption and leaks. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen.
No distractions with descriptive meals this time, we discover Bianca can’t even make a decent job of French toast, which I think is eggy bread in English. This alone should tell you that Threading the Needle is a much grittier book.
If you only read one book in this series, read this one. Not least for the powerful afterword by Claudio Ferrara, journalist, author, and translator, from Milan, who sets the historical and political context.
Icons in Milan:
As a series, there are common elements: corruption, deception, trust (or lack of), food references (!), politics, greed, dishonesty, corporate power, vendettas and revenge. And although the heroine is a woman, there are few other women in the books and they fall into the usual decorative sexual stereotype category. I found Bianca somewhat flat, with her analytical coldness and she could really do with an injection of vitality. I am surprised her long-suffering boyfriend puts up with her. In contrast Gennaro, and his detective pal Farrugia are well-developed characters who tend to take over the books. No matter, the point is, the series is a good read, there are a few proofing errors but not enough for me to tear my hair out, and if you enjoy these sort of thrillers, I recommend them. They can be enjoyed at two levels, as an interesting story and straightforward read, or if you want to think a little deeper, Valjan poses some challenging questions about society, organisations and global corporations.
The fourth book in the series, Turning to Stone, is set in Naples and looks equally promising, and I’ll be reviewing that next month.
The author
Gabriel Valjan lives in New England, USA. He went to university in southern California and gained his master’s in Medieval Studies in England.
He’s worked as an engineer, a nurse, and is a certified personal trainer, yoga instructor and an advanced scuba diver. Gabriel has enjoyed traveling round Europe and North America.
His short stories and poetry have appeared in literary journals and online magazines. Ronan Bennett short-listed him for the 2010 Fish Short Story Prize for his Boston noir, Back in the Day.
He has an interesting blog at gabrielswharf.wordpress.com where he writes about books and authors, but also has a series about World War One which may interest history buffs.
Books provided through Italy Book Tours.
Love all the photos! That lasagne looks yummy too – I reckon my garlic mushroom one could be on the menu today. :) Sometimes it’s quite interesting to see how male authors envision their main character females and vice versa, although I suppose we’re not all that different in our heads.
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Photos are obviously ancient, mid 80s!
I got three aubergines and loads of peppers from my Spanish neighbours, so it was lasagna one day, and pizza the next :)
I edit for a great author who writes excellent male characters, especially evil ones, but having said that, she writes good characters across the board.
I was saying how much I liked a strong female character to another author, and he said she originally started off male, which I thought was interesting. Perhaps we should write characters first and ascribe gender later?
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Still, such gorgeous buildings. I’ve been to Venice at the ripe old age of fourteen, but never Rome although I’ve always wanted to see it. Love aubergines too in Lasagne – pizza too. Aubergine and avocado pizza is amazingly cool. You’re right! Write the characters first. I’ve never wondered what a man would think before writing any of my males – mainly just think of them as people. I do remember a long online chat in a writing group with some getting quite hot under the collar about having to get into the mind of the opposite sex or you would never be able to write them.
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I loved Italy for the history, but I can say the same about France, Spain, Portugal etc. I’d just spent so many years studying Roman history and archaeology that it was a real delight to see places and artefacts for real. Preferably not covered in scaffolding and netting.
Aubergine and avocado? Must try. Made an excellent guacamole last week to go with chilli beans and tortillas. The avocado was just perfectly ripe. I should have bought two.
It’s an interesting discussion point. Are men and women essentially different and should they be portrayed as such, or are we just reflecting the societal view that ascribes gender attributes and behaviour? I like reading blogs where the gender isn’t clear, and people make assumptions based on what they read as to whether the author is make or female.
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Travel pictures and food. Perfect post. (Avocado goes with everything – sticking to that story)
You are right about how much fun it is to read stories about places you’ve been too – and the same with traveling to the places you’ve read about.
The last book sounds like the winner. I like characters that are archeologists. Valjan’s occupations and adventures probably created a solid stories. (Impressive book reviews as always. Enough tidbits to interest, but nothing given away -plus humor. Nicely done) Now you’ve made me very hungry…and we do have avocado…food before or after dog walk – with tropical rain band days, that’s always the question.
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Travel and food, indeed a perfect combo – and with a good book to read too.
I like reading some travel books too, but I tend to like the long journey type ones, again probably because it reminds me of my own travels. I don’t think I’ve read many fictional archaeology books, probably because it always seems over-glamourised, whereas my reality was either dust or mud, chapped/dry lips, scuffed hands, broken nails, and poor money. I felt like a labourer on a building site wheeling my barrow up and down ramps to tip the unwanted soil away.
With Valjan’s work, I like the way he tackles a range of issues, weaves in the day to day office work, adds the foody touches, and brings it all together. Matter of taste I suppose, and I was influenced by the Italian locations.
Mmm, avocado. Delicious however it’s cooked/prepared. Allegedly it rained last night but I never heard it. Sounds like muddy paw wave time your way again.
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Sounds good, and the lasagna looks scrumptious! I often find that interesting, to read, how a male author describes a female character and vice versa.
On an unrelated note; I followed the Pope’s visit in the US. CNN had total coverage of the entire visit. The Pope had a translator who followed him around everywhere … he was really good at what he was doing, and he did it in such an un-intrusive way. I said to my husband I thought I detected a slight, British accent, but my hubby thought not. We started to google the guy, and apart from finding out that all girls found him incredibly CUTE in Twitter, we found out he’s from Gibraltar! Msgr. Miles :)
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Thanks Reb, and yes, a male author with a female lead is an interesting one :)
Gibraltarians have a variety of accents, some are Spanish, some are perfect English, and if they’ve lived in/were brought up in the UK, they can have all sorts of UK regional accents. I didn’t know about Mark Miles though, so thanks for that piece of info. He must be pretty handy at languages, brought up bilingual Eng/Span, and presumably has Latin and Italian to survive inside the Vatican. I guess from Gib, he’s used to living in small places so not too difficult to adapt to the Vatican. If you’re Catholic of course. Bit difficult otherwise …
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Yes, he was really good! [and it was kind of fun to see what all the girls said in Twitter :) ]
LOL @ adapting to the Vatican …
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He looks sort of cute and nice but not oozing sex appeal. Maybe I need to watch some vids. Brit accents can be attractive though …
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I didn’t think so either … just cute :)
Especially living here, I find a British accent to be very … refreshing.
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Oh, you just know how to make my hungry! That Lasagne looks soooooo delish! I wouldn’t mind reading those books as well, with that Lasagne next to me of course. :lol:
Roma, underground will be the first one I would love to read. I love archaeologist stories and this reminds me of the books of Barbara Michaels I loved to read. She also wove her stories around different themes. Old and historical buildings, archaeologist digs, jewellery, etc. Very well researched too. I think these stories would make great movies as well. :D
You must have enjoyed reading these books, especially because you were at those place. Must be so much fun! :D
I love the photos! Such beautiful architecture. Thanks for sharing Kate. Always a treat to visit here. ♥
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I had a blitz of cooking pasta and pizza reading these books. Yesterday I did more Italian dishes, broad beans in a delicious sauce and potatoes with onion, garlic, lemon (juice and some rind shavings), fresh basil, and ground walnuts. Very yum.
I’m ambivalent about archaeology and history stories, but Roma was a good tale. At least it wasn’t Harrison Fordish. And it centred around the period of Roman history I studied so it was an easy read for me.
I think it’s easier to imagine the atmosphere when you’ve been somewhere, even if it was only for a day or few. Italy is a real gem for architecture. Thanks Sonel.
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Oh shush! You are making me just hungry! :lol: That sounds so yummy!
Oh no, I like Harrison Ford and his movies. I do prefer the action above the history of course. I want to be intrigued. Not fall asleep. LOL!
It sure is and you made it just more personal. :D
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To continue the food, latest Italian recipe was broccoli and leeks with white wine, very nice :)
HF always has a puzzled look on his face. I think I’ve only ever seen him in one decent film and that was with Greta Scacchi. She was why it was a decent film.
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Mmmmm… sounds nice and you are so spiteful! Be glad I don’t live close by. :twisted:
hahahah! Yes, he does. It’s his image. I love his movies and he is a great actor. :D
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Something tells me we don’t have the same view about male actors :D
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hahaha! I don’t think we do, but it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s boring to like the same things. We should have different tastes. :D
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Yes, I was thinking HF is to me what Daniel Craig is to you :D
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Yep! You got that right. :lol:
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Did you say you like Tom Cruise too? (another yuk) and I won’t even mention Tom Hanks.
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Oh absolutely! And Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks for sure. Don’t forget Arnold and Clint Eastwood. :lol:
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I think Arnie and Clint are OK. And Alec Baldwin, Jeff Bridges (brilliant in the fabulous baker boys with Michelle pfeiffer), Richard Gere when he’s a baddy, and can’t think of anyone else for now. Oh yes, pierce brosnan when he’s a baddy too – Tailor of Panama, excellent film.
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Oh, I love all the Baldwin brothers and yes, Jeff Bridges as well and definitely Richard Gere. How can I forget about him? And yes, he must be a baddy. Pierce Brosnan is a big YES – baddy or not. :lol: Then there’s Robert Downey Jr. as well. If I have to choose between him and Johnny Depp, I don’t know what I would do. :lol:
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Who’s Robert Downey Junior?!!
Now Mark Wahlberg, …… Very good. Very tough.
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He played in the movie Ironman. Lead actor and of course in The Avengers. I love movies like that as well. :D
Yeah, I like him as well. Ted and Ted 2 were hilarious and he is a great actor for sure. :D
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I’ve not seen any of those. I think you’d beat me on the Film Quiz !
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Well, that’s about all I do most of the time. I’m mostly on PC games (hidden object or strategy), Movies and Music.
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Whereas I read and have technicolor shooting through my head. Interestingly going back to the books, another reviewer of one of these books said they would make a great BBC style series of an hourly episode. I think that’s absolutely spot on, although I’m not sure how many hours I’d allocate per book, two maybe?
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I do the same but my imagination is pretty shot these days. I’d say two.
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And Hugh Jackman! *drools*
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Who? Think I’ve heard of him. Forgot Alan Rickman on my list.
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Hugh played as Wolverine. Yum!
Oh yes, he is a great actor as well and sexy too! Great choice. :D
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Wolverine? Rickman was so good as the Sheriff of Nottingham, and as the baddie in the first Die hard. Oh, don’t like Bruce Willis either :D
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He was and the Die hard movies was great oldies. I do like Bruce Willis. :D
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I knew you would. It went without saying :D
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hahahahaha!
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I like the pictures.
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Haha. They are nearly as old as me!
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in that case you have been taking good photos for a long while now
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Lol. I wish.
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Hmmm… interesting. Female heroine, foodie refs, series… all things I love in a book and your review makes the rest attractive as well. I’ll never make decent inroads on my TBR list if you keep this up.
Mmmm… lasagna :)
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It’s quite a thoughtful series. There was something different about it which I can’t quite put my finger on. There some quite techy bits (to non-techies) eg hacking through firewalls and the DNA discussions in wasp’s nest, but I found that really interesting. I suppose I’m saying although there is action in it, it’s not wham, bam action. And there’s quite a lot about interpersonal relationships within groups which I enjoyed too. I no longer have a specific TBR list. Quite impossible. I take what comes up. Much more spontaneous and fun.
I’m on an Italian food cooking roll, I tell you :D
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Here’s another review of the first book, which I think is a pretty good summary:
http://libraryofcleanreads.blogspot.ca/2015/09/roma-underground-by-gabriel-valjan.html
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Au pairing. I did it. Or rather, I spent three months as a live-in cleaner. In Leamington Spa. I was banned from speaking my native language with my friend in the house. Coz it might confuse the children. I lasted three months.
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About the same as me! I was meant to speak English with the non-English speaking children though. Au pairing. Just tell me about it. I did stay with a family, friends of the weirdos, who were delightful, and had gorgeous children. Luck of the draw …
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Hey Kate
Totally unrelated to the book review, but this made me think of it. I Drove through Milan once, coming up from the Adriatic Coast to my home in Germany. All I can say to that is…..wow. Not for the faint of heart. It’s not as bad as Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but is better than say, San Diego.
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Milan didn’t grab me. Typical Northern European hard city. I did like visiting La Scala. At the time I listened to a lot of opera, so, that was nice. Actually Europe isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a mindset thing I suppose.
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When we lived in Germany, we were pretty fearless. We would just get in our very American Pick up truck with its camper and hit the road. Like that vacation on the Adriatic. 10 days in an Italian town mostly frequented as a holiday spot for Germans. And us LOL. It was quite interesting to say the least.
I know you like animals, so this might interest you about my time overseas. I did the German Begleithund training with my Golden Retriever, Scooter. We didn’t do the protection part, as that not really in the Golden temperament, but we did the rest, the Part A and B.
Eh..off topic, sorry. I really, really liked Europe a lot, though. Got to see quite a bit of it actually. Not the eastern part, as that was still the Cold War days, so you could not just hop over.
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I ‘hopped’ over th wall. I was staying with a German family in Düsseldorf or somewhere and they had a flat in Berlin. The son drove me and him there and we had to stop at a checkpoint. I had to get out, (not him), show passport to evil looking Stasi or whatever they were and it freaked the life out of me. I had visions of being hauled off, incarcerated and never seen again outside the wall.
I bet you were fun before you got religion Wally ;)
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Sounds like an intriguing plot. Love the old photos. The Lasagne has me almost drooling. I assume it’s vegetarian. :)
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It’s good. I’m partway through the next one but work has intervened. :(
Aubergine, onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, as I recall. Mix of yoghurt and veg cheese to suit him. Not sure why anyone adds meat to lasagna!
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Sounds delicious.
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We might be veg, but food is a big part of our life. After all, how else do we keep going?
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Whadaya mean not you… go on, git! And it better be a slow boat too, maybe even a canoe… for you! :D Those pics look pretty old. Threading The Needle with the arms manufacturing involving a murder sounds interesting. What kind of arms though, hey? Arms of a jumper came to my mind, but that would be knitting needles, gotta be a shirt… yep, needles, cotton, definitely a shirt. But then if they were short arms… could be a cover up for something else. ;) Dodgy if you ask me!
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Not me because I didn’t go via Boston. And it was train not slow boat. Did the Euro-rail thing. Brilliant. And it was thirty (one) years ago, so the pics will look old. The cars in the header photo should give that away.
Tanks actually. No not a tank top either ;)
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I’ve always loved travelling by train, although, I haven’t done that since my return to England… that’s gotta change. Pat and I have been discussing spending a week in London. Something we haven’t done yet… Nearer to Christmas time. ;)
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What was BR is a ridiculous price. And crap quality.
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I’ll chug along happily enough on any train while I’m fantasising about being on my way to save the world or put things to rights. :D
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Me too. It’s just, like many things … trains ain’t what they were. When I was travelling between home and university, there was a quaint little plaque in each compartment informing us whether it was American Sycamore or Canadian Maple. Now there are no compartments and who cares if it’s Chinese Plastic?
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Bloody modernisation, hey? Spoils everything. Take these new academies (suppose to be schools) for example… no character whatsoever. How can one learn to think outside of the box, when all they see is the inside of one? Ok, I’ll shut up now. ;)
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Thinking? What’s that? Having a laugh. A is watching a Callan film from 1974 atm. The world is just so dumbed down :(
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Have fun!
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When you read an author, you binge!
I think I like to like my heroines more than I am likely to like this one. Some readers may be sorry that the last book is on a diet.
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Actually I do. But these were a free book tour so why not? There is something wrong with this heroine. She’s cardboard. Much better was Dylan Hearn’s heroine who started out male and he swapped genders. Very clever. And regarding diet, the fourth book brings back the menu. Phew.
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Mind you, I’ve noticed that plastic lead characters seem to provide little limitation to success, in action/thriller or detective books in particular. That reading public doesn’t seem to want these characters fleshed out. Skeletons will do.
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The world is changing. So are books. Just had a conversation tonight about that. Where have all the thinking people gone?
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It is a depressing topic. I have been introducing increasingly challenging threads into my own fantasy scribbles, when actually I should be ‘dumbing them down’? I am probably trying to swim against the current.
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It’s a bit like the reading age of tabloid newspapers isn’t it? But if you have people who enjoy your books, why not introduce something else? If you look at commercial bestsellers, authors are often criticised for their later books where they lose inspiration and churn out endless tat instead of adding that bit extra to their work. Always good to go against the flow :)
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Ah-ha! I knew I’d find something we have in common eventually! (apart from a love of Yorkshire and Olhao :) Just a bit different, aren’t they?) I like books set in places I’ve been too, or would like to visit. And doesn’t Gabriel sound an interesting man?
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Haha! Nicely played Jo. Gabriel wrote the first book (I think) while having cancer treatment. One hell of a man.
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I actually have nothing much to say – but I might ask you to post the recipe ( or shoot me an email) for that lasagna.I am looking for new stuff.
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I make the base from onions, garlic, toms, aubergine, peppers, just sauté them together and always do more than you think.
One layer veg, one lasagna, another veg, etc. topping was yoghurt with grated cheese mixed in, easier than a white sauce and I didn’t have soya milk in, although that would have been my preference.
Is that not specific enough? Quantities, at least one of everything, and loads of toms. I usually do three sheets of lasagna.
If I have any leftover anythings I add that too. It’s the tomatoes that make it as they keep it moist. What you need to avoid is that vile claggy stuff that is served out. Vomitsville. For me, it needs to be about the veg, so it’s light but full of flavour. Oh, herbs. Of choice.
But, if you want to change it, you can add ground nuts or tvp if that’s your thing. I prefer to use those for spag bol, shepherds pie, cannelloni.
I can give you those recipes if you wish:) Today we had sliced potatoes, sort of pommes Anna, with sautéed onion, herbs, mozzarella and yeast extract stock. Didn’t do enough. With broc and courgettes.
Salad shortly for tea.
Seriously, email me if you want inspiration. Or at least, recipes.
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Thanks.
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Sent you an email anyway if you want more recipes. Mon choeur ;)
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Thank you.
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That was a mix of cher and coeur. In case you didn’t work it out …
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I just read it literally – choir – I thought you were expecting me to ”sing” for my super ;)
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I’m not that mean. And your singing might be awful, going by your musical taste except for lovely Robert from Batley.
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[…] is the setting for the fourth book in the Roma series by Gabriel Valjan. Our team of financial investigators now find themselves in southern Italy, and […]
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