Converging Parallels

By Timothy Williams

A small-town kidnapping presents a major problem for Commissario Trotti—and draws us into CWA Award winner Timothy Williams' debut, set against the rich backdrop of a provincial Italian city.

Northern Italy, 1978: Commissario Piero Trotti, trusted senior police investigator in an anonymous provincial city off the River Po, has two difficult cases to solve. A dismembered body has been found in the river, and it’s up to Trotti to figure out who the murder victim is. At the same time, an estranged friend approaches Trotti with a desperate personal plea: his six-year-old daughter—Trotti’s own goddaughter—has been kidnapped. In the wake of the high-profile kidnapping of Aldo Moro, president of Italy’s majority party, faith in law enforcement is at an all-time low, and it’s no surprise the distraught father isn’t willing to take this matter to the police.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781616954611

Timothy Williams

Crime Writers' Association Award–winning author Timothy Williams has written six crime novels set in Italy featuring Commissario Piero Trotti as well as two novels set in the French Caribbean: Another Sun and The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe. Born in London and educated at St. Andrews, Williams has taught at the universities of Poitiers in France, Bari and Pavia in Italy, at Jassy in Romania, and most recently in the French West Indies. The Observer placed him among the ten best modern European crime novelists.

Reviews for Converging Parallels

[sheila1957 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in 1978 Italy with the Moro kidnapping as the backdrop, Commissaro Trotti has a kidnapping and murder in his own city that he must solve. I do not know how he made the connections because I never would have but he manages to solve them. This book sets up Trotti's life and world. It pulls in the politics of Italy and the police. He's an interesting man, very low keyed. He gets angry but it's when he should. I hope to read more in this series to see how his world expands or contracts based on what his fellow characters are telling him.