gialli.com Home Page - Mysteries Set in Italy

Welcome to gialli.com
Carlo Vennarucci, webmaster

The Definitive Website for English-language
Mystery Novels Set in Italy

Italian Definitions
giallo = yellow (pl. gialli)
libri gialli = detective,
mystery stories

For many years in Italy, cheap detective and mystery books were printed with “yellow” covers and sold at news stands. Over time, gialli / giallo have become the accepted popular names for mystery and detective stories.

Mysteries are categorized as either Contemporary or Historical.

Other books are categorized as Suspense/Thrillers; Action/Adventure; Literary Fiction; and Non-Fiction.

In addition, there are varied views by Themes (e.g. Vatican, World War II, Mafia, Red Brigades, etc.) or by Locations (e.g. Sicily, Venice, etc.)

The Site Map gives the current status of website construction and includes statistics on the number of authors and books implemented. This options also allows one to view books by 'Author Name', in the left frame.

What's New highlights new books in print in the main frame. The left frame provides convenient links to the books added to the website in the past month; returning visitors may find this useful.

Rating	Explanation
	5-flags: Top-notch. Captures the essence of the Italian personality and Italy's social and political culture. Well written. Interesting characters that are authentic Italians. A joy to read!
	4-flags: Very good. Italian references are reasonable. A few English or American characters. Well written.
	3-flags: Pretty good. Too many non-Italian characters, however interesting.
	2-flags: Good. Not as well written and the Italian references are not authentic. Practically no Italian characters. Could have taken place anywhere.
	1-flag: Really bad. Definitely not recommended.
none	Not rated yet.

When you come across an interesting title, the challenge is how to get your hands on it. Of course, you may find it at your public library or from your friends' collection; or you can buy it new or used from a local book store.

Gialli.com prefers to buy new or used books over the Internet. For new books, we use Amazon.com and have added convenient links to both the U.S. and U.K. Amazon sites for books in print. For used, out-of-print books, we strongly recommend abebooks.com. which gives you access to over 30 million books through thousands of booksellers world-wide. You should be able to purchase a used copy of any book featured on the gialli.com website through abebooks.

gialli.comment: Re: publication history--Some books have a single hardcover edition in a single country, and that's it. However, the more popular authors get published in hardcover, paperback, large print, audio book, and e-book editions in the U.S and the U.K. (and other countries)--and then after a few years, the paperback is usually re-released with yet a different publisher. Given that each edition has a different cover and jacket notes makes it nearly impossible to completely document the publication history of a given novel. At this time, gialli.com will not include information on specific publishers or ISBN numbers.

Background and Acknowledgments

The gialli.com library has been collected over many years, driven by a love of Italy and the enjoyment of a good mystery or thriller. The Internet has been essential in finding many of our books. Doing keyword searches at Amazon.com or abebooks.com was a good start at expanding our collection. In addition, the following website was particularly helpful:

MYSTERIES AND THRILLERS SET IN ITALY
Dr Mark Chu, Department of Italian, University College Cork, Ireland.