MAY THE WOLF DIE

A brisk Italian investigator solves crimes, handles a tricky personal life, and navigates the elaborate criminal investigation bureaucracy of Naples.

The discovery of a dead body turns Nikki Serafino’s idyllic getaway on the Bay of Naples into a busman’s holiday, and not a pleasant one. Nikki works as a liaison between the U.S. military and the Italian police, investigating crimes involving U.S. service members. She and cop colleague Valerio are aboard her pride and joy, the Calypso, when a corpse gets tangled underneath. Shortly afterward, Nikki’s investigating an apparently minor car accident involving American naval commander Charles McAllister when she happens upon another corpse in a red Jeep on the side of the road. These seemingly straightforward crimes turn out to have surprising connections. The complications in Nikki’s professional life are matched by those in her personal life, as her ex, Tito, shadows her and threatens her new relationship with the hot Enzo. Her brothers, Adriano and Gianni, and her bubbly Aunt Izzy are also in the mix. The Neapolitan setting and the details of underwater investigation give Heider’s debut an offbeat and entertaining gloss. Immersing Nikki in the local culture, she presents a Naples as murderous as some American cities: “To be in Naples was to accept the danger.” But the torrent of disruptions on the criminal and personal fronts and the extra characters and layers of bureaucracy that Nikki’s job involves, however true to life, may well distract readers from the more compelling matters of plot and character development.

A lively procedural with a high-powered heroine and a setting that would be idyllic if not for those murders.