Andrea Mattiotti's Lake Maggiore crime novels are set in the 2010s. Vol. I, Death off Brissago, takes us to the larger of the Brissago Islands in Lake Maggiore. Carlo Flury, a young detective with the criminal police, is called in when the body of a young woman turns up in the lake. At first, it looks like a swimming accident. Then the past surfaces: someone died at the very same spot many decades earlier. In exactly the same way... Carlo has to dig deep into Swiss history to crack the mystery.

Il Ticino, the southernmost part of Switzerland, is blessed country. Incredible scenery—palm-fringed lakes tucked between jagged, snow-covered mountains—and a Mediterranean climate have made the region a magnet for international tourists. At the same time, the canton is one of the poorest in Switzerland. Before international finance moved in around Lake Lugano and drug and weapons smuggling across the narrow Italian border turned into a multimillion-dollar business, many people in Ticino lived in bitter poverty.

Around World War I, and again during the Nazi era in Germany, the area around Locarno became a gathering place for artists, intellectuals, and people looking for a different way of life from all over the world. Monte Verità is right next door. Not far away, Hermann Hesse wrote Steppenwolf; Patricia Highsmith spent the final decades of her life here, writing, among other works, the five Ripley novels. The arts continued to thrive in the area long after World War II ended. Today, tourism is held back only slightly by the high value of the Swiss franc.

Death off Brissago

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