Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Italian Secret: A Novel by Tara Moss

 

Tara Moss is a Canadian-Australian author, documentary producer, journalist, and UNICEF national ambassador for child survival. Her Billie Walker character is another post-war woman similar to Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge of the Allison Montclair books, looking for her place in a world turned upside down.

The Italian Secret (Dutton, 2025) is her third book about Australia-based Billie, whose journalist career has ended because the newspapers want to hire returning soldiers. Billie reopened her late father's private investigation agency in Sydney and business is booming. A new operative who can easily mingle among the servants in upper class households has joined her staff. Sam, her trusted secretary and security guard, is still Billie’s mainstay as she gives the women of Sydney seeking desperately to leave abusive marriages the ammunition they need for a legal exit.

Billie is wrapping up another domestic case as the book opens. The violent and philandering husband in the case appears in Billie’s office to threaten her. Billie chases him off, knowing with the photographic evidence of his infidelity in hand, her client can easily obtain a dissolution of the marriage. Billie’s only worry is that an unsavory private investigator with ties to the Camorra seems to be on the husband’s payroll.

With a lull in the demands on the agency Billie settles down to sort her father’s old case files. In the bottom of one cabinet, near the back, she finds a bundle of faded letters to her father from someone named Francesca in Italy, an aging photograph of her father with a beautiful woman and a child, and a box with 500 pounds in old notes. (Equal now to $37,692.63 Australian dollars and $24,686.79 U.S. dollars.)

While she is mulling over her discovery and trying to broach the subject with her mother, her recent client dies suddenly, ostensibly of a quick-acting influenza virus but Billie fears poison of some kind. She urges Lieutenant Hank Cooper of the Sydney police to have an autopsy conducted, especially since her husband was the beneficiary of a large insurance policy.

Billie’s search for Francesca takes her to Naples, well off her usual beat, but complications from the recently ended domestic case follow her. The life aboard the luxury ocean liner was well researched and described without devolving into a data dump, as was the Naples setting, with its bombed-out buildings, the different neighborhoods, and the wide range of stores and bazaars. 

A good historical mystery with an original protagonist and interesting secondary characters. Fans of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher will want to look at this series.

 

 

·         Publisher: ‎Dutton

·         Publication date: ‎December 2, 2025

·         Language:‎ English

·         Print length: ‎368 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0593474759

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0593474754

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4p7t3Rz

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.