Mystery about shoemaker might be a perfect fit

"The Innocent." By Magdalen Nabb. Soho. 233 Pages. $22.

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For those who have read too many mysteries that have tried hard to be different or even far out, the ideal book might be "The Innocent."

The murder investigation is straightforward. It is interesting and not easy, and the book absolutely isn't weird.

After a body is found in the Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy, it must be identified and the circumstances of its murder uncovered.

Magdalen Nabb, who writes in graceful, calm prose, sets Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri to work on all that. He is a sensitive man from Sicily who cares about the Florentines he lives among and wants to be helpful. To those ends, he has tried to become one with Florentines.

After he discovers that the victim is a young Japanese woman who is an apprentice to a maker of fine shoes, he asks questions of the shoemaker (being careful, knowing that he has a heart condition) and of the shoemaker's other apprentice.

Guarnaccia worries later that proper procedure would have been to separate the two men and question them harshly. He also worries that some people in the neighborhood seem to be treating the shoemaker as an outsider. Guarnaccia has to work out why that is.

He investigates both an obvious suspect and the victim's movements the morning before her murder, looking for motive.

At home, Guarnaccia's two young sons cause him a bit of dismay. But his wife handles it, so that thread in the story adds texture without intruding on the main plot.