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Sunday, December 17, 2023

Passing on the Mystery Novel Obsession


The amazing Kerstin Staudacher, who is like a daughter to Ann Brauer Andriacco and me, wrote a masters thesis on the Commissario De Luca crime novels of the Italian writer Carlo Lucarellis. These half-dozen books are set in Bologna in 1944. Kerstin writes in her abstract that the author “realizes a mixture of crime novel and historical novel in an outstandingly sensitive and detailed way.

Since Kerstin’s latest degree was granted by Klagenfurt University in Austria—near the small down where she  lives—the thesis is, of course, written in German. My German being rather limited (although I did understand the word “Thriller”), I will not be reading all of it. But I was touched by seeing my name at the front of the work. Kerstin wrote (according to Google Translator):

I would also like to thank Dan Andriacco for our interesting and constructive conversation before the work. That and his crime novels from the Sebastian McCabe - Jeff Cody Series inspired me to do this work. 

When we visited her this month in Austria, Kerstin presented me with a copy of the thesis along with one of the De Luca novels, L'inverno piu nero (The Darker Winter). Since I can read Italian a bit, I will be dipping into that.

I've been reading mysteries almost as long as I've been reading. I'm very pleased that I've passed this obsession along to our "Austrian daughter." Can Sherlock Holmes be far behind?

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