Cremona Mysteries

Rikard Olsen, a successful violin maker from Norway, is found dead in the canal in Cremona – and it wasn’t an accident. A mysterious, exquisitely-decorated Hardanger fiddle that he brought with him to Italy has disappeared. Rikard was a former pupil of Gianni Castiglione, and Gianni and his detective friend, Antonio Guastafeste, travel to Norway to investigate the murder – a journey that takes them to Grieg’s home at Troldhaugen; to Lysøen, the tranquil island retreat of Norway’s Paganini, Ole Bull, and high into the remote mountains where memories are long and secrets easy to conceal. The missing Hardanger fiddle had a carving of a hauntingly-beautiful young woman on the scroll. Gianni and Guastafeste believe that the woman may hold the key to the whole puzzle. But who was she and what made her so special that Rikard Olsen had to die? Book three in the series.

A dazzling young Russian virtuoso performs a sell-out recital on Paganini's violin in the cathedral in Cremona. Then one of the audience, a shady Parisian art dealer, is found dead in his hotel room, a fragment of sheet music belonging to the virtuoso hidden in his wallet. But how did the dead man get hold of it? And why? Gianni and Antonio investigate the murder and find themselves at the centre of a tantalising story of love, deception and greed. Following a trail that leads back to Paganini, his lover Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister), Catherine the Great of Russia and a long-lost priceless treasure, the two friends must unravel another mystery that has gone unanswered for over a century, one that may hold the answer to the modern-day murder. Sequel to The Rainaldi Quartet. Book two in the series

Tomaso Rainaldi, an elderly, unassuming violin maker in the quiet Italian city of Cremona is brutally murdered. His friend and fellow-violin maker, Gianni Castiglione, begins to investigate the death, discovering a link to the fabled Messiah violin. As Gianni probes deeper, he finds himself involved in a sequence of startling events that leads to another murder, a mysterious Englishman and an unscrupulous violin dealer. A train of events that careers across Italy and England as Gianni becomes a player in a game where musical instruments change hands for millions, where forgery is an art form and the preferred method of negotiation is murder. Book one in the series.