What is David P. Wagner reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: David P. Wagner, author of Cold Tuscan Stone.

His entry begins:

Since I write mysteries that take place in Italy, I like to read other mysteries set there. I’ve gone through all those of the late Michael Dibdin, and wait patiently for new ones by Camilleri and Leon. But in between the mysteries I try to read non-fiction books about Italy, and there are many. Lots are straight history, new looks at the same old themes: rise and fall, fall and rise, you know the drill. But every once in a while there is some wonderful new story.

Fortune is a River by Roger D. Masters is one of those. It tells of a strange collaboration between two famous names of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and Niccoló Macchiavelli. Florence was having one of their periodic wars with Pisa, and somebody in Firenze had a great idea: why don’t we divert the Arno River so it doesn’t go through Pisa? That’ll show’em. And Niccoló, why don’t you hire Leonardo for the job since he’s great with water and...[read on]

About Cold Tuscan Stone, from the publisher:

Rick Montoya has just moved from New Mexico to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He’s beginning to settle in to la dolce vita when a school friend who is now senior in the Italian Art Squad recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick would arrive in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery and flush out priceless burial urn traffickers.

But before sunset on Rick’s first day, a gallery employee dies in a brutal fall from a high cliff. Has the trade in fraudulent artifacts upgraded to murder? Are the traffickers already on to Rick?

The local Commissario and his team consider Rick an amateur, and worse, a foreigner. Plus Rick is a suspect in the dead man’s murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick continues to interview his list: a museum director, a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, and a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele. When Rick’s girlfriend Erica arrives from Rome to visit him, she rekindles a friendship with an alluring, maybe dangerous, acquaintance. Has Rick’s role made him the target of both cops and criminals?

Learn more about the book and author at David P. Wagner's website.

Writers Read: David P. Wagner.

--Marshal Zeringue