Just Fishing: A Giuseppe Bianchi short story

By Isabella Muir

As he relaxes in his favourite seaside resort of Anzio, near Rome, Italian Detective Giuseppe Bianchi has the chance to reflect on his life choices, while helping a friend to make a decision...

 

This is an introduction to Giuseppe Bianchi, but we meet him again in England in the first of two crime mystery novels, Crossing the Line.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outset Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Mar 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201571290

Isabella Muir

Isabella is never happier than when she is immersing herself in the sights, sounds and experiences of the 1960s. Researching all aspects of family life back then formed the perfect launch pad for her works of fiction. Isabella rediscovered her love of writing fiction during two happy years working on and completing her MA in Professional Writing and since then has gone to publish five novels, two novellas and a short story collection. Her first Sussex Crime Mystery series features young librarian and amateur sleuth, Janie Juke. Set in the late 1960s, in the fictional seaside town of Tamarisk Bay, we meet Janie, who looks after the mobile library. She is an avid lover of Agatha Christie stories – in particular Hercule Poirot – using all she has learned from the Queen of Crime to help solve crimes and mysteries. As well as three novels, there are three novellas in the series, which explore some of the back story to the Tamarisk Bay characters. Her latest novel, Crossing the Line, is the first of a new series of Sussex Crimes, featuring retired Italian detective, Giuseppe Bianchi who arrives in the quiet seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, to find a dead body on the beach and so the story begins… Isabella’s standalone novel, The Forgotten Children, deals with the emotive subject of the child migrants who were sent to Australia – again focusing on family life in the 1960s, when the child migrant policy was still in force.

Book preview

JUST FISHING

A Giuseppe Bianchi short story

Isabella Muir

JUST FISHING

DURING MY YEARS as a detective I’ve learned how convenient it is to put people into compartments. Witness, victim, criminal. It’s a lazy approach, but something I found myself doing in the early days, before my understanding of human nature deepened.

Now, when I meet someone, I take time to reflect on the nuances of their character. Of course, there are occasions when there’s no time - and little need - for such philosophical dilly-dallying. If I am sitting outside a bar and I see a man steal a wallet from a jacket that is hanging on the back of a chair, I simply arrest the man, leaving my uniformed colleagues to process him. I have no interest in his motivation or the extenuating circumstances. Perhaps he has been an honest man throughout his life, save for this one lapse. Perhaps he is hungry or his children are hungry. Perhaps none of these things are true and enjoys the challenge of catching someone unawares.

As a detective, I am called on to deal with more serious crimes, even murder. It is on these occasions that I take my time. I interview each person concerned several times. My colleagues tell me my interviews are quieter than any interviews they have known. I