My 5-Star review in entirety published on Amazon for Pamela Allegretto’s Cozy Mystery:

When you do, I suggest wearing sensible shoes. Not like Carla Romano, the protagonist in this Cozy Mystery, who runs around Venice in her Adolfo pumps and incurs a blistered toe on account of vanity.

Of course, when you’re a reader who enjoys this book as much as I did, you can go barefoot.

For me, more than the who-dun-it-aspect of this Mystery, I wondered just how Carla would prove she didn’t have any stolen diamonds, so she could walk away unscathed in her Adolfo pumps or Fiorucci boots.

What a romp it is!

Carla is pursued by the thief and an assorted bunch of inept slimeballs, the FBI, and Polizia Veneziana. Throughout this madcap venture, Carla’s suspicions of everyone around her, and her imaginative scenarios go through the roof of the Hotel Bonvecchia.

Like the diamonds which sparkle in this mystery, the story is multifaceted:

The author’s thumbnail descriptions of her characters are priceless. How charitable of her to give the reader a whiff of them too—Mabel Gastrom’s breath is to die for.

By integrating snatches of dialogue in Italian, and by weaving interesting facts about Venice throughout the story, the reader virtually follows in Carla’s footsteps. These are often artistic renderings:

“Opening her eyes, she watched scattered ivory clouds float overhead and imagined them to be delicate fragments of lace that had escaped the lace makers’ fingers on the nearby island of Burano.”

Also, right up my alley—there’s plenty to chuckle over via self-deprecating wit, slapstick, and bawdy humor.

As you can tell, I highly recommend this gem!