Collection: Captain Scarpone Mysteries (ebook)
When Denise and I were first married, we lived overseas in Italy, where she worked covering soccer for sports organizations like ESPN. We first lived in Rome, then moved to a small town an hour north. The countryside was exactly what the travel magazines depict: olive groves and vineyards as far as the eye could see, and quaint thousand-year-old villages filled with fascinating characters.
One of our new neighbors cautioned us about thinking we had landed in paradise. “The town isn’t exactly squeaky-clean,” he said. “We just got a new marshal. He’s supposed to clean up the town.”
In small towns of this size, the police function was performed by the carabinieri, Italy’s colorfully uniformed paramilitary force.
Needless to say, our neighbor’s news came as a shock, but in due time I began imagining a story around these meager facts. The result is The Marshal of the Borgo. I set out to write a mystery novel, but things took a turn toward the weird and paranormal, just as they did with other books of mine.
—Joe
