Magdalen Nabb Books In Order

Publication Order of Marshal Guarnaccia Mystery Books

Publication Order of Josie Smith Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Magdalen Nabb was among the best known authors from England, who mostly liked to write books based on the genres of mystery and thriller. She was particularly well known for developing the very famous detective novel series called as the Marshal Guarnaccia Mystery series. Author Nabb was born on January 17, 1947, in a town called Blackburn, located in Lancashire, The United Kingdom. Her birth name was Magdalen Nuttal. Author Nabb received her primary education from the Convent Grammar School, located in Bury. She completed her high school studies and then joined an art college in Manchester. There, she received an education in pottery and arts. Later, she began these forms of art studies to students in an art school. In the year 1975, author Nabb shifted to Florence, Italy, along with her son named Liam. At that time, she was not well versed with the Italian language. Initially, author Nabb continued to work on her pottery skills in a small pottery town located in Florence. Along with that, she also started writing stories. On one occasion, author Nabb was in Montelupo when she met her inspiration behind the development of the character of Marshal Guarnaccia. Eventually, she went on to write her first book featuring Marshal Guarnaccia. It was titled as Death of an Englishman and was published in the year 1981. All the stories that author Nabb wrote in the mystery in the next few years were set in Florence.

Author Nabb has described the city as a very secret city. She used to spend most of her time near the Carabinieri station, strolling regularly and chatting with the marshal so as to get up to date information about the crimes taking place in the city. Later, she used to use all the information to develop the plots of her next books of the series. Apart from the Marshal Guarnaccia series, author Nabb wrote another successful series called as the Josie Smith series. This series is specially written for children. Author Nabb was also involved in some journalistic works for the German, Italian, and English papers over the course of her writing career. In the year 1991, she received the Smarties Book Prize from Nestle for the success of one of her novels from the Josie Smith series. The final book written by author Nabb was released posthumously in the year 2008. Magdalen Nabb received a stroke at the age of 60 and subsequently died on August 18, 2007. Before moving to Florence, Italy, author Nabb had old away her car and home. She had even abandoned pottery. But, as she did not know anyone in Italy and also did not understand Italian, she had to again start doing pottery. Since then, author Nabb has continued to live in Italy and work with for her dual career of children’s author and crime writer. In all, she has written 14 crime novels. In these novels, she has described the city of Florence as very secretive. If you walk down any street in Florence, you do not have an idea as to how things are behind the walls. Author Nabb has depicted Marshal Guarnacci as trying to deal with such problems all the time. The other novel series written by author Nabb, Josie Smith, is also immensely popular. This series formed the basis for the Granada children’s television series. The first book of this series stood as the runner up for the Children Fiction Award by Guardian in the year 1991.

The Marshal Guarnaccia series written by author Magdalen Nabb consists of 14 books in total, which were released between the years 1981 and 2008. All the novels of the series feature the chief protagonist in the role of Salvatore Guarnaccia, who is introduced by author Nabb as a marshal living in the Carabineri of Italy in Florence, Italy. One of the most successful books released in the series is titled as ‘The Marshal Makes His Report’. This book was published in the year 1992 by the Arrow publication. At the beginning of the book, author Nabb has introduced the main characters as Marshal Guarnaccia and Buongianni Corsi. As the plot opens, it is shown that the dead body of Corsi is lying in the Palazzo Ulderighi courtyard with his face in the down position. The family members of Buongianni Corsi do not seem to have any doubts about the fact that Corsi’s death happened accidentally. Even the Marchesa, who is the dead man’s wife, does not seem to think of any other possibility. In fact, she uses her status and power in the city to ensure that Marshal Guarnaccia uses his peril to question.

Marshal Guarnaccia suspects that something does not look right in the case and he thinks that Corsi could have committed suicide or he could have been murdered. Guarnaccia resents to become a part of any cover up and tries to find the truth. With the help of his investigation, he comes to know that the Palazzo is like a maze of darkened corridors, passageways, locked rooms, as well as a family secret. Marshal Guarnaccia keeps questioning his instincts throughout the investigations and thinks whether he should risk his integrity, job, and many more for finding the truth in the case. While searching for clues in the Palazzo, he gets continuously haunted by the music of flute and piano that seems to originate from the top floor. Such instances make Marshal irresistible about the feeling that something very sinister has taken place in the courtyard of the Palazzo.

One more highly interesting book published in this mystery series is titled as ‘Death in Springtime’. The Soho Crime published this book in the year 1983. In the opening scene of the book, author Nabb has shown that a couple of foreign girls get kidnapped during the daytime from a piazza in Florence. The kidnappers seemed to have used the unusual snowfall in March to distract everyone, including Marshal Guarnaccia. Even though he had witnessed the incident, he seems rather unsure about what he actually saw. Soon after, one of the girls who was kidnapped is found in a village located in Chianti. She claims that the kidnappers have allowed her to go so as to collect the ransom money for the other girl. However, the marshal does not seem much impressed by her words and thinks that she is lying. As per the law in Italy, it is forbidden to pay ransom to the criminals. Now, whatever the girl is saying is true, Marshal Guarnaccia needs to hurry up and find the other victim before the abductors decided to kill her for not getting the money.