Postcards From the Mediterranean

by Margaret Maron

Overview

Three short stories from the Mediterranean, featuring Lt. Sigrid Harald or her housemate, Roman Tramegra. All three were previously published, but collected here for the first time.

My first three years of marriage were spent in Italy, overlooking the Bay of Naples. By the time I returned, I had written several books about Lt. Sigrid Harald of the NYPD and her eccentric housemate, Roman Tramegra. He was only supposed to be a walk-on character who would fade away after that first book. Except that he kept popping up. He wanted to write crime novels and he wanted to pick Sigrid's brains for plots and procedures. It occurred to me that if he ever sold a novel, he would take the advance and fly straight to Italy, a country as colorful and extravagant as he himself. Happily, this gave me an excuse to fly back to Italy myself, to research certain details. In "Roman's Holiday," I thought it would be amusing to let him try to solve a mystery just as would the amateur detective he had created. A later trip let Sigrid solve an Italian mystery, too ("Murder at Montefugoni").

"El Tramegra" is set mostly in Spain, not Italy and the "postcards" are emails, not scenic bits of pasteboard, but not even the foreign keyboards can foil our intrepid Roman as he takes on a quixotic adventure.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015769401
Publisher:	Maron & Company
Publication date:	11/20/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	796,281
File size:	54 KB

About the Author

Born and bred in North Carolina where the piedmont meets the sandhills, I grew up on a modest two-mule tobacco farm that has been in the family for over a hundred years. Tobacco is no longer grown on the farm, but the memories linger — the singing, the laughter, the gossip that went on at the bench as those rank green leaves came from the field, the bliss of an icy cold drink bottle pressed to a hot sweaty face, getting up at dawn to help “take out” a barn, the sweet smell of soft golden leaves as they’re being readied for auction. Working in tobacco is one of those life experiences I’m glad to have had. I’m even gladder that it’s something I’ll never have to do again.

After high school came two years of college until a summer job at the Pentagon led to marriage, a tour of duty in Italy, then several years in my husband’s native Brooklyn. I had always loved writing and for the first few years, wrote nothing but short stories and very bad poetry. (The legendary Ruth Cavin of St. Martin’s Press once characterized my verses as “doggerel. But inspired doggerel.”)

Eventually, I backed into writing novels about NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald, mysteries set against the New York City art world. But love of my native state and a desire to write out of current experiences led to the creation of District Court Judge Deborah Knott, the opinionated daughter of a crusty old ex-bootlegger and youngest sibling of eleven older brothers. (I was one of only three, so no, I’m not writing about my own family.)

We’ve been back on a corner of the family land for many years now. My city-born husband discovered he prefers goldfinches, rabbits, and the occasional quiet deer to yellow cabs, concrete, and a city that never sleeps. A son, a daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters are icing on our cake.