NONNA MARIA AND THE CASE OF THE LOST TREASURE

Back in action on her beloved Italian island of Ischia, amateur detective Nonna Maria uses her grandmotherly wiles to prevent the killing of a carabinieri captain and to help lead a young woman to her late grandfather’s hidden treasure.

Nearly a decade ago, before he settled in Ischia, the old widow’s friend Captain Paolo Murino and his team of carabinieri took down the notorious Red Squad mob and its ruthless boss, Guido Ostino, up in Florence. From prison, Ostino has plotted a revenge killing, which Nonna and another friend, a reformed hit man called Il Presidente, hope to thwart. The unknown treasure is in one of the caves on Ischia where contraband and other stuff has been hidden for decades. Nonna calls on a duo that knows the caves, dubbed the Magician and the Pirate, to find the goods, which rival treasure hunters will do anything to lay their hands on. In both cases, Nonna Maria isn’t fazed about the possible risks to herself. Her paramount concern is to help friends in need, whatever their backgrounds—making sure they’re properly caffeinated and fed with great home-cooked meals. Though the dual plots are nicely handled, the novel is best enjoyed for its history and culture. Carcaterra takes us back centuries to the Cemetery of Dead Nuns, where the bodies of nuns of a certain order were left in seated positions on stone “death chairs.” He introduces us to the Mourners, a group of women formed in 1943 who lost husbands and sons in the Allied bombings of Italy and were determined to “cause chaos for the enemy.” As for the hundreds of cases of wine supposedly hidden in the caves—“That’s my idea of a lost treasure,” says Nonna Maria.

The third book in a series is an entertaining mystery steeped in local lore.