Christobel Kent Books In Order

Publication Order of Sandro Cellini Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Christobel Kent
Christobel Kent was born in the year 1962 in London. She grew up in Essex and London, including living on the Essex coast on a Thames barge with four step-siblings and three siblings. She lives with her husband and four kids in Cambridge. She has resided in Florence, Modena, and in northern Italy.

She worked in publishing for many years, most recently working as Publicity Director at Andre Deutsch. She also worked in TEFL teaching.

Christobel’s debut novel, called “A Party in Niccolo”, was released in the year 2003. Her work is from the mystery genre and she writes the “Sandro Cellini” series as well as some stand alone novels.

“The Drowning River” is the first novel in the “Sandro Cellini” series and was released in the year 2009. A wet November in Florence, the grieving widow of one eminent Jewish architect shows up to visit Sandro Cellini, disgraced cop, good husband, and recent PI, to ask him to look into her husband’s supposed suicide. Cellini takes her case only out of sympathy, even though this is a first case which makes for a downbeat to start his new career on.

There appear to be no doubt at all that Claudio Gentileschi, a lifelong depressive and Holocaust survivor, found drowned on a rather bleak stretch of the River Arno, did in fact kill himself. Initially, Cellini believes his one duty is to just support the widow during her time of mourning.

Cellini doggedly retraces the final hours of the architect through the very worst rains since the devastating floods from 1966. At the same time, one young Englishwoman is discovered to have disappeared from the city’s community of high-living, hard-drinking art students. Sandro’s hunt suddenly turns into something a lot grimmer and more urgent than he could possibly have imagined, while he uncovers a network of corruption and greed that’s hidden under a facade of refinement and tradition.

This novel has a dreary setting, and is a great start to a new detective series. It keeps you guessing and makes for an engaging page turner.

“A Murder in Tuscany” is the second novel in the “Sandro Cellini” series and was released in the year 2010. While Sandro comes to grips with the harsh realities of life as a PI, touting for new business among some old contacts and following errant teens around, one old case returns to haunt him.

Loni Meadows, who was once the subject of a routine background check during Sandro’s earliest days as a private investigator. She is the charming, ruthless, and glamorous director of an American-Italian artistic retreat in a castle in the hills outside of Florence. Her car goes off an icy road one night.

The circumstances of her death appear to be less than accidental to Sandro. However inconvenient Sandro’s suspicions might be, both to Sandro (whose marriage seems to be crumbling after his wife’s illness) and to Meadow’s erstwhile employers, the detective presses on.

Much to Sandro’s chagrin, every one of the artists in residence at the time of Loni’s death had more than their own reasons to dislike her. However who in this group had the most compelling motive to actually want her dead?

Kent is masterful in mood and character her, and the cast is well rounded with their own complex motives for doing what they do. The plot is interesting and the novel is well told. Each page is engaging, the characters are believable, and the setting is rather interesting. Cellini is a very likable character in this.

“The Dead Season” is the third novel in the “Sandro Cellini” series and was released in the year 2012. Each August, Florence shimmers in the heat of summer. This year, however, the heat wave is even fiercer than usual, and the city’s inhabitants have all fled to the cool in the beaches and the hills of the surrounding countryside. It isn’t any surprise that amid all the shrubbery of a typically busy roundabout, a dead body lies unnoticed, bloating up in the humid air.

Sandro Cellini isn’t going to be joining the crowds of holidaymakers this year. The former cop turned private investigator has a case. A guy that appears to have vanished into thin air, leaving his pregnant young wife by herself in the city. At the same time, Roxana Delfino (a bank teller) is stuck in the city for the entire season also, without anything to do but worry for her aging mom and ponder over the disappearance of a regular client.

While all of Florence is sweating it out, Cellini tries his best to grapple with his case as well as the complications it throws at him. When the weather finally does break, it brings a stunning revelation with it.

Readers love both the Italian setting and Sandro, which both serve to make this an interesting and enjoyable read.

“A Darkness Descending” is the fourth novel in the “Sandro Cellini” series and was released in the year 2013. Niccolo Rosselli, the charismatic and driven leader of a Florentine political movement, collapses at a rally, his new party is quickly threatened. It emerges that Flavia, his long time partner, has vanished, having left behind not just a devastated husband but also their newborn child, the political gets dangerously personal.

Sandro gets drafted to investigate. The trail takes him to a tired seaside town and one modest hotel, where Flavia supposedly chose to kill herself. Cellini isn’t at all satisfied. Why would somebody so young and with a lot to live for, walk away from everything she loves?

While digging into her secret world Sandro finds the hidden life of one young woman consumed with a lethal, dark obsession and private passions. While the public and private worlds intersect, he can’t forget that a life in Italy does come with a perilous edge. One that is fueled just as much by desire as by rage.

Kent allows you to get to know these characters and their lives better than just about any other crime author. Readers also like how their relationships are depicted, too; it makes everything seem extremely realistic.

2 Responses to “Christobel Kent”

1. Buttercup Henderson: 1 year ago

   I totally agree with Sue as I too love Ms Kent’s Sandro Cellini stories.
   However, on the flip side, her other ‘English’ stand alone books, not so much.
   Maybe they were written earlier.

   Reply
2. Sue Craker: 3 years ago

   I have enjoyed the novels by Christobel Kent that I have read so for. I am about to start The Viper.

   I would like to thank all those authors who give readers like me so much pleasure. there is no more lasting joy than opening a book by an author that you have read and enjoyed before.

   Reply