The Fatal Touch
A Commissario Alec Blume Novel
By Conor Fitzgerald
June 2011
$25.00
384 pp
6.125 x 9.25 in
Hardcover
By Conor Fitzgerald
The engrossing second novel in the Commissario Alec Blume series, centering around the death of an art forger with a complex web of secrets in his past.
Alec Blume returns to action in this intricate and heart-pounding new novel. With the help of his associate Caterina, Blume is called to the scene of a death connected to a spate of muggings. Though the Carabinieri-military police-are trying to control the investigation, Blume, never one to bow to authority, pursues it his own way.
When it becomes clear that the victim is an art forger, enemies-and hidden treasures-begin to emerge. Relying on old friends and intuitions, Blume hurls himself into the center of the mystery, risking his job, his neck, and just about anyone who trusts him.
Immersed in its old-world setting and written with satisfying detail about inks and signatures and the tools of forgery, this is a riveting novel, with rich characters and a spectacular conclusion.
Conor Fitzgerald is the author of The Dogs of Rome, also featuring Commissario Alec Blume. He has lived in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy. He has produced a current affairs journal for foreign embassies based in Rome, and founded a successful translation company. He is married with two children and lives in Rome.
Praise for The Dogs of Rome:
"A sizzling-hot debut that deftly weaves together corrupt politicians, organized crime, and centuries-oldtradition."—Entertainment Weekly
"Conor Fitzgerald is a class act … a real find."—William Boyd
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Reviews for The Fatal Touch:
"Some Americans abroad fantasize about lingering in Paris to paint or jumping ship in Jamaica to become beach bums. Conor Fitzgerald had a better idea in his first novel, “The Dogs of Rome,” when he allowed his expat hero, Alec Blume, to put down roots in Rome as a homicide cop. A free-spirited maverick, Commissario Blume returns in THE FATAL TOUCH (Bloomsbury, $25) to investigate the death of an old tramp, a notorious brawler and a drunk, assumed to have been killed during a mugging. But this routine case takes a tricky turn once Blume, whose parents were art historians, determines that this was no mugging and that the victim was really a skilled forger with clients in high places. Although an organized crime angle injects an element of danger into the investigation, there’s more pleasure to be had from Fitzgerald’s commentary on the victim’s dodgy trade, including fascinating technical instruction for “forgers, interpreters, emulators, admirers and genuine artists.”—New York Times Book Review
“Exciting… Intriguing touches such as the tools a forger has in the kitchen and a strong sense of Rome's environs enrich the intelligent plot.”—Publishers Weekly
“The search for the authentic goes beyond art in this outstanding police procedural.”—Library Journal
“Fitzgerald’s insight into the workings of the Italian police and Carabinieri is fascinating.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Like Iain Pears, Fitzgerald uses art history to get inside his characters’ heads, exposing inner lives in painterly roundness. This is already a series every fan of the Italian crime novel needs to know.”—Booklist
