Christmas is over and a fog-draped Naples is preparing to celebrate the new year when, on stage, the famous actor Michelangelo Gelmi fires a prop gun at his wife, Fedora Marra. The scene is part of their perfor-mance and happens every night at this hour. But this time something goes wrong. The blanks have been replaced with live bullets.

Approaching old age and with a career in decline, Gelmi has become increasingly dependent on his wife-a much younger, beautiful woman at the height of her fame. Rumor has it that she had fallen in love with another man and was going to leave him.

Is it a straightforward case of infidelity and marital jealousy? Commissario Ricciardi has his doubts. Winter Swallows is a captivating, historical mystery set in 1930s Naples that will keep readers enthralled until its final, dramatic act.

Praise for Maurizio de Giovanni's Commissario Ricciardi series

"The romantic, suspenseful and political strains interweave and resolve in superbly artful fashion."-Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

"Love, longing, and loss suffuse de Giovanni's elegiac, autumnal eighth Commissario Ricciardi mystery."-Publishers Weekly

"Like stepping into a Vittorio De Sica movie."-The New York Times