Roman Count Down, David P. Wagner
Roman Count Down, David P. Wagner
List: $20.99 | Sale: $14.70
Club: $10.49

Roman Count Down

Author: David P. Wagner

Series: Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries

Narrator: David Colacci

Unabridged: 7 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/13/2026


Synopsis

Rick Montoya, eager to experience more of his Italian mother's culture, heads to Rome to start his own translation business. He's armed with curiosity and an appetite for local food and wine.

Rick's maternal uncle is a Roman cop with one eye to his nephew's welfare and another to how Rick might be useful, perhaps widen his career choices. So Commissario Piero Fontana pulls Rick into an investigation: the murder of Count Umberto Zimbardi.

The wealthy count enjoyed indulging a circle of convivial friends and a hobby collecting oral histories by interviewing residents in the city's centro storico. After heading home from such an afternoon, he was found dead on a bridge over the Tiber.

As a newcomer and an investigator, Rick makes rookie mistakes. He's learning the ropes as an amateur sleuth and that living in Rome is different from visiting. Plus he's distracted by a woman pressing him into service as an Italy tour guide and the arrival of a college friend on a mission to sell Argentine wine to the Vatican. But there's a dangerous countdown at play, and Rick needs to solve the case before the unthinkable happens.

About David P. Wagner

David P. Wagner, a retired Foreign Service officer, spent nine years in Milan and Rome during his career and now writes tourist materials about Italy and mystery novels set in Italy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Abibliofob on July 18, 2024

Roman Count Down is by far the best book in this series about translator and interpreter Rick Montoya by David P. Wagner. This book is a prequel to how Rick moved to Rome and started his business there. It is a wonderful book filled as usual with history, culture, food and drink. Oh and murder. Now......more

Goodreads review by Tonstant on May 18, 2019

Roman Count Down is the sixth in David P. Wagner’s Rick Montoya series. The story opens with Count Umberto Zimbardi taking a bus home for the first time in his life only to get murdered. His murder will occupy the attention of the main character Rick Montoya even though he probably should be focusin......more

Goodreads review by Mystica on May 08, 2019

The story is a simple one. One of the upper class Counts has been found supposedly murdered just outside his residence. The police do not find any enemies or suspects as such. They are under pressure from the Countess as well to find out how and why her husband is murdered. That she was a strange bi......more

Goodreads review by Kathleen on May 10, 2019

Remember first and most importantly that the Italian criminal justice system operates vastly differently from that in the US, UK, and Canada (and other countries as well). Still, you might find it odd that an Italian police officer would involve his nephew in the investigation of the murder of anyon......more