The Fatal Touch

Commissario Alec Blume #2

by Conor Fitzgerald

In the early hours of a Saturday morning, a body is discovered in Piazza de' Renzi.If it was just a simple fall that killed him, why is a senior Carabiniere officer so interested? Commissioner Alec Blume is immediately curious and the discovery of the dead man's notebooks reveals that there is a great deal more at stake than the unfortunate death of a down-and-out... What secrets did he know that might have made him a target? What is the significance of the Galleria Orpiment? And why are the authorities so intent on blocking Blume's investigations?

Genres: Mystery, Italy, Crime, Fiction, Detective, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

385 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 18, 2011

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second of the Alec Blume mysteries and very good indeed, lives up to the promise of the first. I am delighted to find this author and am looking forward to more. With its mixture of crime, cynicism and corruption Italy seems to be the perfect venue, in the right hands, for modern police procedurals. And Conor Fitzgerald clearly has the right hands.

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second in the series - Alec Blume, an American who was orphaned in Rome when his parents were killed in a car crash. They had been art historians or something and he still has their art books to sustain him. He has since become a commissioner in some branch of the police in Rome.

A female police officer has been introduced in this volume and she appears to be working as an assistant to him. She has a young son.

Here they come upon a dead/dying Irish painter on the street. Is he just another in a series of tourist muggings? Or is this something else? It would have been a much shorter book if he was the former.

Enjoyable story, including police and political corruption which seems to be running rampant.

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

really liked it four stars first from fitzgerald-conor for me

[Mary Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new author/series to me, would read others in the series.

[S.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alec Blume is an American-born commissioner for the Italian police. The death of what looks to be a town drunk could be a mugging or a homicide. But when it is discovered that the deceased is a famous art forger, the case is mysteriously handed over to a semi-retired former secret service agent, Corporal Farinelli who has a questionable reputation. Blume relies on a new recruit formerly with immigration. Inspector Caterina Mattiola has to prove herself to the men in the department whom she out-ranks which isn’t an easy task. Blume secretly works the homicide angle on Henry Treacy, the art forger. Treacy had a strained relationship with his partner, John Nightingale, as well as his former lover, Angela, who is now with John. Blume plays a cat and mouse game with the Colonel when he finds volumes of diaries Treacy planned on publishing as well as paintings that could or could not be forgeries. The Colonel is mentioned in the diaries as is Nightingale. The Colonel isn’t above threatening people, first Caterina’s son, and then Blume’s ex-cop friend who operates below the radar. Blume reminds me a lot of Louise Penny’s Inspector Armand Gamache. They both are more cerebral detectives vs pounding through doors with guns blazing. The author dishes out history lessons in art and forgeries in large dollops which are fascinating. This is one series I will definitely follow.

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fatal Touch has a lot going for it. It has a strong, intricate plot, with a disparate range of characters and several cleverly interwoven strands. It is clearly based on a lot of research around art forgery and the art world, and procedurally it seems realistic. The narrative is culturally sensitive and portrays a good sense of place with respect to Rome. And it is generally very well written with some lovely prose. The notebooks of Henry Treacy are particularly nicely drafted. Despite all the good stuff, I do however have two concerns. The first is that the novel is overly long. My sense is that a good ten thousand words, and probably twice that, could be cut from the script and a reader would not notice. In fact, it would increase the tension a little and make the book more of a page turner. As it is, the start is slow and it takes a while to get going and there is a lot of superfluous description and dialogue, much of it nicely written, but not needed for the story. Second, Alec Blume seemed a little characterless to me. As the leading character, I never got the sense as to what made him tick or felt there was any real depth or range to him. It's almost as if he's a blank foil for more colourful characters surrounding him. Overall though The Fatal Touch is a very competent police procedural, with loads of technical and procedural detail, and an enjoyable plot.

[Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and Alec Blume as a character. I have read most of Donna Leon's Inspector Brunetti novels, Camilleri's Montalbano series and other Italian police novels. The Fatal Touch seems fresh and different enough from the others to be entertaining.

As I have found in many books, some of the best humor takes place around the dinner table, and this story continues that trend.

I look forward to reading the first Alec Blume novel, "The Dogs Of Rome"

[Oodles · Rating 4 out of 5]

An elderly man is found dead in a Roman piazza - was it murder? Both Inspector Alec Blume of the police and the Carabinieri are interested in the case because this particular victim was a talented art forger. Fitzgerald leads the reader through an exciting world of art and crime.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where is John Wick when you need him?

Conor Fitzgerald has killed a lot of dogs in his books, makes me wonder what he has against them. Plus the killing in this book feels like such a cheap shot, unnecessary and unearned. Also, so much padding. Lots of long, boring quoted passages from a fake autobiography that are supposed to mean something in the final act, but because the pertinent info is rehashed then, there really is no point. There is also a very forced-feeling relationship and conversations that go nowhere. Such a disappointment after Dogs of Rome. I also purchased the thirs book in this series but don't plan to read it.

So this book

[Gavin Stephenson-Jackman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in the Commissario Alex Blume series, and an excellent addition it is. What at first seems to be the death of a foreign national as a result of a mugging turns into so much more. The victim of the apparent mugging turns out to be a rather successful art forger with many more secrets to hide beyond his occupation. Into the mix is the military police and a rather corrupt senior officer in charge of art theft. Blume is like a dog with a bone. He's not willing to completely turn over the case in the process putting himself and others at risk. The characters are well rounded and the action as the search for the work of an old master intensifies is riveting.

[Helen Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Commissario Alec Blume is, oddly enough, an American who is a member of Rome's police force. In this novel, he is training a new associate, Caterina. Initially, they work a case involving the murder of an art forger, but when the Carabinieri - military police - become involved, Blume is ordered to back off. This is a novel so visual that I felt like I was watching a movie as I read. The humor and witty dialogue lightens the mood of a story that, nevertheless, involves serious issues. I would be interested to read other books in this series.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Art history, forgery, cuckolded secret lovers, garden nooks, the Italian mafia, bullies, innocents, buffoons, villains, murder, and muggings, oh my! I really enjoyed this second installment in Commissario Blume’s world. My only complaint is minor- the primary mystery hinges a great deal on a set of journals, and the journal excerpts run a bit long for me. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this ride, and I learned some things. Bravo!

[Joan Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much more appealing than first in series

American in Italy Commissioner Alec Blume solves death of an Irish art forger. The plot is intricate and shows the endemic corruption of the Italian police. Fitzgerald does better at making Blume intolerable human being. The addition of a female inspector as a potential love interest improves the series but he is still not great at developing characters one cares about.

[Lucy Kelford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Alec Blume character and the setting in Italy, and I also enjoyed the way the story unfolded but I can’t say that this book gripped me from the start. I found it to go on a little too much in certain places and rush through other parts. I am glad I read this book as the story was quite interesting, but I’m not sure I would recommend this.

[Mona · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn’t even make it through this book. It was so slow I could never get interested in it. I finally gave up.

[Ed Simnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite enjoyed it, but not great. The long passages of diary were a bit off putting.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another expose of Italy's failure of state and the struggle against corruption. Alec Blume is good

[Pete Wung · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very difficult to enter into a mystery genre when the marketplace is already filled with others trying to use the same starting point as you are. Colin Fitzgerald is jumping into the Italian murder mystery club with an added side note of art history, or more accurately, the art forgery genre.

While this book shows good promise and held my interest for long periods of time, there are significant weaknesses. It just seems like the author really doesn't know where he is headed with the protagonist. The character development is somewhat weak, and the plotting is ambiguous. This is especially glaring when comparing Alec Blume with such characters as Aurelio Zen, Guido Brunetti, Inspector Montalbano, and Jonathan Argyll. Granted, comparisons with those characters are unfair since they are well ingrained in our minds, since they have long been established, but such is the perils of entering into genre fiction writing.

I can see Blume developing into an interesting character. His quirks, personal pain, and warped sense of humor need to be examined in sharper focus and used in ways that are more than window dressing. The meandering nature of the plot needs to be a little more focused, and the villains need to be less pure evil and more nuanced. The villain in this book is almost a caricature of a villain.

Not that this story has no redeeming qualities. Blumes' newly introduced sidekick is a nice touch, bringing some sense of freshness and hope for the story. While she is a minor character, I am hoping she grows like Annie Cabot in the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson. Blumes little interplays with his subordinates are at this point, a little forced. He doesn't spar with them with the ease of Inspector Montalbano, but again it shows promise.

After that litany of comparisons and nitpicky criticisms, one may ask: why bring all those comparisons up at all? My read on the author is that he has added certain elements in the story that are reminiscent of those other mysteries and authors because he has been influenced by the works or by the authors. My intention is not to say that Mr. Fitzgerald is unoriginal, it would be impossible to completely wash out all of one's influences in the writing, but I think he is a much more capable and original writer, and that scrub he must, of his influences from his writing.

The best part of all this is the cultural details of Italy, the cynical attitudes that the characters show for their society, and how their civic infrastructure work, or doesn't work. The social critique of Italy was extremely interesting but not quite biting enough.

What Mr. Fitzgerald is absolutely fantastic at is explaining art forgery, from the nuts and bolts of the technique and chemistry to what art forgers and art experts look at in terms of clues to the authenticity of the art work. The small interludes of geeky art forgery history and techniques is the perfectly juxtaposed respites from the plot. It gives the reader a nice pause to consider something other than the plot. I thought those sections were engaging and very well written.

Overall, I enjoyed the reading experience, I do feel like this could have been better executed, but I feel like I will be rewarded later on as the characters of Alec Blume and Catarina Mattiola evolves and grows.

[Martina · Rating 4 out of 5]

#2 in the Commissario Alec Blume series by Conor Fitzgerald set in Rome. We read the first in the series, The Dogs of Rome, in the Mystery Book Group in September 2011. Finally getting back to the series having found books 2-5 available for nook in March. Part of my catch up Pandemic reading.

I had some difficulties with the first half of the book, but the things I did not understand at first became clear as the second half unfolded. I liked the main characters, both the grumpier and the more mellow, but found the dreadful corrupt elements within the various levels of 'policing' in Rome to be appalling. With much of the plot grounded in the art of forging art and selling it, I found much of interest. No one in the book was untouched by the most corrupt of players, including himself. A very satisfying conclusion though. Glad I have more in the series at hand to read whenever I have a break in my new book holds coming my way.

[Jay Fromkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Fatal Touch" returns to the basic theme of corruption among Italian police agencies, but this time framed not in the world of underground dog fighting, but rather the world of art forgery. Who is Henry Treacy? Was his death an accident or murder? And if it was murder, who killed him, and why?

Blume's former partner, Beppo Paolini, returns to help Blume, but his new inspector is Caterina Mattiola, a single mother who transferred to the murder squad from immigration investigations. She has talent and intuition, but is struggling with the old boys club among the state police, and trying to accommodate Blume's often abrasive style. Together, Blume and Mattiola seek to solve Treacy's death and a series of muggings of foreign tourists - which might include Treacy.

Fitzgerald's most compelling characters are the villains. In "The Dogs of Rome," it is a psychopathic murderer. In "The Fatal Touch," it is a Carabinieri colonel in the Art Forgeries and Heritage Division, a man who physically and psychologically is reminiscent of Orson Welles' character, Hank Quinlan, in "Touch of Evil." Colonel Farinelli is both repellent and superficially charming; a man with refined and enormous tastes in food and art, and an equally enormous capacity for corruption and treachery. He is a fully-drawn character, which I wish was also true for Blume and Mattiola. What does Catarina look like? The only real reference is to the figure of the Madonna in Caravaggio's "Rest on the Flight Into Egypt." Thank heaven for the Internet.

The plot is intricate, satisfying, and a good overview of art forgery and the enablers who paint the forgeries, provide false provenance for the forgeries, sell the forgeries, and buy the forgeries.

I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as "The Dogs of Rome," but it made me look forward to Fitzgerald's next Alec Blume novel.

[Zeb Kantrowitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book in the series about Commissario Alec Blume. Blume is an American ex-pat who settled in Rome after both his parents were killed in a shooting. Though he’s been a cop for years (and speaks fluent Italian), everyone still thinks of him as an American.

He has been given a new assistant, Caterina who has come over from the Department of Immigration where it was her job to deal with illegal immigrants. She made the transfer hoping she would be able to spend more time with her ten year old son. Fat chance.

On her first day, there is a call about a dead body near a local pub. The dead man is well known in the area as an ex-pat Englishman who is slowly drinking himself to death. But someone has helped him along by bashing him in the back of his skull. There have been a spate of muggings of foreigners in the area, but Blume doesn’t think there is a connection.

The local Carabinieri (like the county police) decide to get involved because the man was a well-known forger. There are hints about fake masters having been sold and some to have been in the forger’s possession. Blume knows that he head of this Carabinieri unit has close connections in the art world and may be part of an art smuggling scheme.

What proceeds is a very intricately plotted story of double and triple cross where it’s hard to tell who is fooling who? You can guess what happens in the end, but the uncovering of the murderer is a surprise. Good second effort.

Zeb Kantrowitz zworstblog.blogspot.com

[Blair McDowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a lover of Donna Leon’s Venetian detective, Guido Brunetti, and Andrea Camilleri’s Sicilian detective Silvo Montalbano, you will enjoy Conor Fitzgerald’s Commissario Alec Blume, of the Rome Polizia. Blume is an interesting character, a transplanted American with a fascinating back story which I won’t spoil by disclosing here. But all the aspects I’ve come to love in Italian detective stories are present in Fitzgerald’s books. There is the setting—Rome. There is the often problematic relationship between the two police forces, the Carabinieri and the Polizia—just as there is in the Leon’s and Camilleri’s books. But this is no simple copy-cat detective story. Blume is a fully fleshed, interesting character, and Fitzgerald’s plot in The Fatal Touch, involving, art fraud and forgery, is complex and compelling. The fact that the story is told against the backdrop of Rome and involves its incredible art is simply a plus.

Fitzgerald draws characters with a clear and concise touch. I can see the young woman officer, Caterina and the crooked Carabinieri Colonel on the Art Fraud Team. I like the character who re-enters this book from Fitzgerald’s earlier novel, The Dogs of Rome, as owner of the dog Blume rescued in that book.

I look forward to reading the next Fitzgerald book featuring Commissario Alec Blume. And I highly recommend The Fatal Touch to all readers of detective stories.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up.

As most of my friends know, I'm a sucker for novels about the art world, and even more so for art-related mysteries. I also love mysteries set in foreign countries, so this book pretty much earned at least three stars just by existing.

I thought the writing was pretty tight -- things were buried throughout the book, but not so obviously that I had the ending figured out too early. Plus, the book wasn't even as much about the mystery as it was about the whole arc of the story; some important details didn't even come out until the last bits of the book, so it wasn't one of those books you can figure out from the first few chapters.

Now for the bad: there were unnecessary action-y sequences near the book's climax, which lead me to believe that it was ultimately written to be turned into a movie. Also, while I liked the fact that the book seemed to focus on Caterina as a strong, intelligent female character, by the end I started to suspect that she's really there just as a love interest for Blume -- I haven't read the first book in the series yet, but I'd bet that's the role that Kristin served in it.

On writing and plot alone I really enjoyed the book, but there were enough small problems to keep it from getting the full four stars.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in the series, and I hope Conor follows up with a third. As with the first book, Alec Blume again is not such a hero, as a old time police investigator with some bad luck and good friends. Conor Fitzgerald’s second Commissario Alec Blume novel, THE FATAL TOUCH, features Blume instructing a new, young inspector, Caterina Mattiola, on the fine arts of homicide detection. Mattiola is ambitious, a woman and a single mother of a 9-year-old, all of which are to her detriment in the machismo-dominated Italian police force.

Blume seems not to mind as he grills Mattiola over details about scenes of the crime. With his insistent and probing questions and little tests, he ends up teaching the reader as well as Mattiola quite a bit about crime investigation.

An elderly drunken artist is found in a piazza with blunt trauma to his head. Was he the victim of a mugging gone awry? Or did he just fall down in a stupor and manage to kill himself? As the investigation proceeds, it is discovered that the man was a clever art forger. And all of a sudden, Blume is marginalized as the despised Carabinieri take over the case.

[Kb · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was a good, well-written police procedural (set in Rome, which is new to me with the Alec Blume series), this book was far too long. The pace was negatively affected by a lot of detailed description of peripheral activity, and some lengthy passages from the memoirs of the man whose possible murder (or was it a mugging gone wrong? Or just an unfortunate accident?) is being investigated.

In my review of The Alienist, by Caleb Carr, I talk about something I dislike that the author does with his characters, and I need to make the same complaint here. Sure, events in the lives of secondary characters affect the central character in ways that can be interesting and enlightening, but that is no excuse for what happens in this book.

After the murder/mugging/accident is solved, there is still some action around a missing painting. I actually could have done without the whole storyline about the painting, since that is the source of the "draggy bits" of the plot.

I will probably seek out and read the next books in the series, simply because the blurbs in the back of this book make them sound interesting. We shall see.

[Shirley Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book happens to be the second in the Alec Blume series, but I never read the first one. That is a mistake that I'm rectifying. I enjoyed this book so much that I want to read the first one now. I also apologize to the publisher for my tardiness in reviewing this book, but I got held up with so many other books that I kind of forgot this one. I am sorry that I did because this book is wonderful. In Blume we have a wonderful Comassario. Blume is American- born, but he now lives in Italy and holds a post fairly high up in the police force of Italy. The combination of Blume's likeableness and Italy's wonderful history and architecture is a compelling one. And Fitzgerald weaves a taut thriller around his protagonist, who happens to be one of the most appealing police detectives that I've come across in a long while. The supplementary characters in this book are just as believeable as Blume himself. I am so glad that I've found this series written by an intelligent and literate author.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alec Blume is an Italian police commisario (like a chief superintendent?), which makes for a good back story. His unit's investigation of the death of an Irish expatriate painter and art forger brings Bloom into conflict with the Carabinieri, the Italian more-or-less paramilitary police. (The differences between our system of police and justice and the Italian system are both complex and interesting.) Blume, and one of his inspectors, Caterina Mattiola, encounter significant personal risk in a complicated case. Blume is an interesting character. He is intelligent, quirky and reasonable at the same time. Compared to Brunetti, the ever-reasonable family-oriented commisario of Donna Leon's excellent series, Blume is much more combustible. This book is his second case. "The Dogs of Rome" began, and "The Fatal Touc" continues, what clearly will be an ongoing series.They are both good reads.

[Leslie Zampetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The London Times claims that Fitzgerald has taken the late, lamented Michael Dibdin's place in the pantheon of Italian mystery authors. Well, the tone and plots are similar, but Dibdin's Zen seemed just a little less morally ambiguous and possessed or more of the Italian version of ,i>je ne sais quoi. Of course, Fitzgerald's Alec Blume is American by birth, if Italian by choice, and perhaps therein lies the difference.

Still, Fitzgerald is a worthy heir and his sophomore effort finds Blume doing his best to solve a murder that no one believes is murder and find a hidden Velasquez before a corrupt and elderly Colonel of the Carabinieri can enmesh him in his nefarious doings.

Obviously a good read for fans of Dibdin, but likely a try for Rankin and maybe even Atkinson fans as well.

[Kirsten Lenius · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book with some information about art history and the culture of Italy. It had some police procedural details that worked fairly nicely and dealt with a corrupt faction within Italy's law enforcement. The maini characters were interesting but not well enough developed to make me happy. The main character seemed flat and almost peripheral, rather than at the center of the story. My favorite part of the book and the part that I feel was best done was the internal dialogue of the Journals within the story. I just wish the rest of the story had been as engaging. It was slow to start with scenes that, while in themselves were fine, really didn't add much to the progress of the story. This sort of story is something I usually enjoy, but this one just missed the mark by bit.

[Alexander Van Leadam · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the second Alec Blume book things take a worrying turn. There are enough clichés to make the book popular, from a young female cop under the tutelage of an older, gruff cop, an art treasure hunt, even an evil fat man. The story is appealingly complex (actually several cases at the same time) but the last part of the book is a bloody search for a McGuffin, only not really a McGuffin because it does matter in the end. Blume is a rather disappointing detective, sometimes insightful, too knowledgeable about art (would he have been so lucky if the case was about something else?) and surprisingly careless, always getting himself and others in danger, and giving his evil opponents the advantage. As for the end, as if the McGuffin wasn't enough, the female and male cop end up in love and in bed, robbing the story of a useful sexual tension (on the other hand, it's another useful cliché).