When Cain retired from the CIA, he moved to Florence, Italy to get away from his past. He’s had nine years to enjoy fine wine, good food, and the Tuscan countryside. But now his old boss has tracked him down, and he needs Cain to do one last job. What starts as a simple trade entangles Cain in a web of secrets involving the mafia, an NSA whistleblower, and his own past. With the Italian police and international assassins on his trail, he’ll have to survive the night to solve the mystery of who wants him dead.
Publishing in May, The Floretine is available to pre-order now for the excellent price of 99p/99c – Amazon UK or free on Kindle Unlimited
Tom Trott is an author, film nerd, and proverbial Brighton rock. He lives in Brighton, UK, with his wife and their daughter.
He wrote a short comedy play that was performed at the Theatre Royal Brighton in May 2014 as part of the Brighton Festival, a television pilot for the local Brighton channel, and won the Empire Award (thriller category) in the 2015 New York Screenplay Contest.
He published his first novel, You Can’t Make Old Friends, in 2016. Since then he has written four more books, three of which have topped the free books charts on Amazon UK and US. He writes film reviews and features for Frame Rated.
His inspirations as a writer come from a diverse range of storytellers including Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Joel & Ethan Coen, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Ira Levin, Quentin Tarantino, and many more books and films beside.
My thoughts: this was very good, with double crossing spies, international assassins, dodgy gangsters, kidnapping, bombs in briefcases, and an excellent police detective. Cain is asked to do a job as a favour to an old friend, but when things go awry, is he being set up?
There’s a definite sense of le Carrè or Mick Herron about The Florentine – the world weary old spy, realising things aren’t going right, knowing there’s going to be at least one killer on his heels and considering the mess, probably the police, and without the shield of an agency from any country, it’s up to Cain to sort it all out. His quiet life in Florence is at an end.
I read this in one sitting and really enjoyed it, I loved Dolly, the passionate NSA analyst, who just wants the truth out there, but even more I enjoyed the Italian detective, Baroffio, who is clearly in need of his own series, even more. He’s smart and thinks outside the box but even when outwitted, never loses his calm demeanour. Very enjoyable.
I was kindly sent a copy of The Florentine to review by the author, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 