She started writing mysteries by accident: while chatting to a friend in the La Fenice theatre she had the idea for a murder mystery (Death at La Fenice) which then became the first in the series. She read a lot of crime fiction in graduate school, which for her was escapism after reading Austen and the classics. She says crime writing is formulaic: you need a crime, a criminal, someone to pursue the criminal, and a solution – she makes it sound very easy!

When asked about her main character Commissario Brunetti, she says he is someone she likes to spend time with, as she has to do for about six months while writing the book. ‘I don’t want to spend six months with Wallander’, she claims, instead she wants someone who enjoys food and wine, and life. These, she says, were all unconscious decisions made when she started writing, and she still finds him an interesting person.

The 21^st novel of Commissario Brunetti has just been published – he has become a darker character, he has less hope and fewer illusions about the future. She says these changes reflect her own, calls herself a pessimist but still gets up in the morning and is happy.

Baroque music (Haendel in particular) is her real passion, and although she doesn’t play, she is the patron of Il Complesso Barocco and Il Pomo d’Oro (named after an opera by Antonio Cesti). She was asked by her friend, renowned soprano Cecilia Bartoli to write something on music, and it ended up being The Jewels of Paradise, which is not a crime novel.

Her love for Italy is obvious in the  dialogue: ‘I’ll never be Italian’ she claims, and likes having the mindset of an American of her generation living in Italy. She says Italians have an elasticity of comprehension she’ll never have. The moral tone in her novels is more Anglo-saxon than Italian, since Italians are not judgemental (although as an Italian myself I don’t really agree with this statement…)

She recounts an anecdote happened while in Vienna with the orchestra, with the Italian ambassador as a guest, when he offered the official car to a member of the orchestra with her two small children, while he and his wife walked to the restaurant under the rain. She was struck by how normal this was for the Ambassador and attributes this to his Italian mentality.

Maxim of course asked what we were all curious to know, why is she not published in Italy? Mainly, because she wants to avoid people who haven’t read her books to assume that she is judgemental of the country – Italians are allowed to do that, but she feels she is not. She recounts another anecdote when she met an aristocrat who accused her of portraying Italy and Italians in a negative way, when it was obvious he had never read any of her books.

She admits to not doing much research for her books, only doing it when she is really interested in a particular topic – for example, she did a lot of research for Acqua Alta and on diamonds for Blood from a Stone. She is not interested in the procedural aspect so that’s all invented!

Unlike other authors, some of her characters (e.g. Brunetti’s children) are stuck in a time warp, they never grow up – she doesn’t want to deal with those issues, and claims ‘if Sue Grafton can do it, I can do it!’. Nowadays she doesn’t read a lot of crime fiction, although acknowledges that Camilleri is very good, since all her spare time is devoted to the orchestra.

The conversazione closes mentioning the book/music combo Venetian Curiosities, with music played by the Complesso Barocco and a book written by herself, which I will have to check out very soon!

I have to confess Scamarcio is nothing like the image I had in my mind of the Commissario, but this is often the case when you read a book and later see a visual production. The more I think about it however, the more convinced I become of the actor. I am of course delighted, as is the author, of the continued success the books and the character are having in Italy and abroad and am confident the team will do a good job of putting the Commissario onto the screen.

Neither the author nor the producer feel there will be a competition with the very successful Commissario Montalbano, created by Andrea Camilleri, which is the protagonist of two television series. The latest, being broadcast currently in Italy, shows the early career of the Commissario, who is interpreted by Michele Riondino.

An Italian newspaper has announced the news here.

For obvious reasons I read countless Italian (crime) books, and more than once I have cringed when reading a sex scene. Now, I have tried to identify the reasons for my reaction and I believe it is mainly because: 1) the scene is is very badly written, and/or 2) it is not necessary.

It is a truism that it’s very difficult to write a good sex scene, and the Bad Sex Awards are testimony to it. Therefore, if you not only are reading a bad scene, but it also feels it’s been ‘shoved into’ the story and has no narrative sense, it makes the reading very clunky and a bit amateurish.

In some cases you might cynically think that these scenes have been added only because ‘sex sells’. In Italy in particular (and an endless number of essays could be written on this) sex is everywhere, so much so that it has been argued people have become desensitised to it. I am not going to analyse the why and when this has happened, I am only concerned with fiction and what I enjoy as a reader.

True, good fiction should reflect life, and sex is a natural and normal part of our lives: however, so are a lot of other activities, like brushing your teeth. I would be very bored if I read a detailed description of someone brushing their teeth, unless there were very specific reasons for it.

I feel about sex scenes in a similar way: if two characters have had sex, just let me know that it happens and move the story forward.

So, what do you think? How do you think an author should deal with the issue? Do you expect a sex scene in every book? Are you not bothered, either way?