Michele Giuttari Books in Order

Michele Giuttari was born in 1950 in Sicily, in the province of Messina. Before he became known for crime fiction, he studied law at the University of Messina, qualified as a lawyer, and joined the Italian State Police.

His police career took him into some of Italy’s toughest criminal investigations. He worked with the mobile squads in Reggio Calabria and Cosenza, then served with the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate in Naples and Florence. Those years gave him a close view of organized crime, local power struggles, and the slow, detailed work behind a major case.

Florence became the place most closely tied to his public career. Giuttari worked on the investigation into the 1993 Mafia bombings in the city, then led Florence’s Squadra Mobile from 1995 to 2003. His time there also included work connected with the long-running Monster of Florence case, and he later led a specialist group focused on serial crimes.

That experience eventually found its way onto the page.

Giuttari first wrote nonfiction about criminal investigations, including Compagni di sangue, co-written with Carlo Lucarelli. In 2004, he made his fiction debut with Scarabeo, later published in English as A Florentine Death. The novel introduced Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, a Florence investigator who faces the kind of political pressure, criminal networks, and rival agencies Giuttari had encountered in real life.

Ferrara is not a polished armchair detective. He works cases from inside the Italian police system, where evidence, jurisdiction, public opinion, and institutional loyalties can pull in different directions. That gives the books a procedural feel, but Giuttari also keeps the stories moving with bombings, threats, missing links, and suspects who are often better connected than they first appear.

The series ranges from Florence’s hidden corners to the Tuscan countryside and Calabria. In A Death in Tuscany, Ferrara investigates the death of an unidentified young woman in Scandicci. The Death of a Mafia Don turns the pressure directly on him after a bombing. A Death in Calabria takes him into the world of the 'Ndrangheta, while The Black Rose of Florence and The Dark Heart of Florence return to a city where wealth, history, and danger sit close together.

The settings matter. Giuttari’s Florence is not simply a tourist backdrop. It is a working city with police offices, political tensions, old grudges, newspapers, courts, and people trying to keep uncomfortable facts out of sight.

His novels often circle questions of corruption, organized crime, secrecy, and the cost of pursuing a case when powerful people would rather it disappear. Readers who like crime stories with investigative detail and an Italian setting will find a steady guide in Ferrara. Giuttari retired from policing and has continued to write and contribute to public discussions of crime and investigations.