Auntie Poldi and the Lost Madonna is the fourth book in the Auntie Poldi series by Mario Giordano. I discovered the series via the Libby app, which allows me to search, put on hold and check out Kindle books from my local library.
The series focuses on Poldi, a sixty-year-old spitfire from Germany who decides to retire to Sicily where she intends to drink herself to death with a view of the sea. Like all cozies though, life doesn’t go as planned for our heroine and over the course of next year, one mystery after another draws her attention as she builds a new life in Sicily.
The narrator of the series is Poldi’s down-and-out nephew who her sister-in-law summon from Germany anytime they fear Poldi is about to resume her death by alcohol ways. It took my time in the first book to understand the narration until I grasped the nephew’s role.
In Auntie Poldi and the Lost Madonna, Poldi gets drawn into a mystery affecting the Vatican, her friends and her lover. Sadly, it also seems that Poldi will finally be keeping an appointment with her old friend Death (a regular character in the series).
I’ve enjoyed the series from the start though I think this might have been my favorite in the series. These are all fun, light reads that easily transport you to the area of Sicily from Taormina down to Catania. I do recommend them, and this one specifically.