Italian policeman Anders lost a leg ten years ago, in the fight against anarchist terrorism. As a break from doing paperwork, he is sent to southern Italy to pretend to investigate the death of a magistrate — who has inexplicably been killed while pretending to investigate the murder of a judge who really did rock the boat. Anders carries out the predictable interviews that will go nowhere, until the judge's widow stirs him to action... There's no real mystery involved in The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders: the only question is how Anders can possibly survive once he's aroused the ire of the mafia. But there's a fine range of minor characters, illustrating the interlocking of government, business, and organised crime.

In Inspector Anders and the Ship of Fools, a bomb kills the combined boards of two merging companies and a manifesto threatens more of the same against any mergers that will result in job reductions, quoting from Sebastian Brant's The Ship of Fools. Anders, now working for Interpol, goes careening around France and Germany, trying to predict one attack while working out the modus operandi of the last. The result is a fast-paced thriller with interesting twists and genuine suspense; though it occasionally verges on the fantastic, the plot remains plausible and coherent. Anders makes an appealing protagonist and again there are fascinating minor characters, this time drawn from the high-flying executives and bureaucrats of Europe.

May 2005

External links:

The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders
- buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Inspector Anders and the Ship of Fools
- buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Related reviews:

- Marshall Browne - Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn
- more Australian + New Zealand literature
- books about Italy + Italian history
- more detective fiction
- books published by Duffy and Snellgrove