Bruce Moss, A Death in Florence

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We follow retired Professor Anders Croft through the streets of Italy's Florence on the last day of the old Dante scholar's life. Weeks earlier, Anders' stepdaughter, Anna, had shown up at his Arizona casita, where he had settled to spend his last days sipping whiskey. She is there to demand an explanation for his behavior over the years, including his part in the death of her mother decades earlier. His refuge upended, he flees her to Florence, a city of many memories. The Hotel Lilia's concierge, an old acquaintance named Sebastiano, agrees to accompany Croft through the city. Remembering the professor's weakness for women, the concierge offers to introduce him to a certain lovely lady. But Sebastiano has an agenda, wronged as he was by Croft many years earlier. The concierge gradually reminds Croft of events he would prefer to forget, including the circumstances of the death of his wife, Kate, killed on the Autostrada del Sole with Croft at the wheel. The professor had been in the midst of a torrid affair with a young Italian girl named Diana when his Kate died in the terrible accident. It is to a Florentine Contessa that the concierge eventually introduces Anders, a woman with a long memory and a fierce agenda of her own. She has a staggering surprise for the professor, and it is at that point that the old scholar's world begins to fall apart, the past becoming more real to Anders than the present ever could.

About the Author

Bruce Moss was born in New York City and grew up in upstate New York, attending schools in the area.  After earning a B.A. in English from Washington and Lee University he spent two years as a Medical Service Officer at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas and Camp Casey, Tongduchon, Korea.  After military service he joined the editorial staff of the New York News. He married  in 1968, then worked in publishing and banking until 1972, when he and his wife moved with their young son to Italy. They lived near Florence for over two years, where he studied at the Istituto Dante Alighieri, gaining fluency in Italian while studying Dante’s Commedia. The experience formed the foundation for his eventual novel A Death in Florence. Returning to New York and remarrying, he resumed work in advertising publishing, the experience serving up material for The Outside Man. He left New York in 1994, having attended evening sessions of Columbia University’s Writing Program, and moved to the Southwest. He joined the Santa Fe Writer’s Group and completed A Death in Florence. He then wrote its stand-alone sequel, Desert Electra, set in Northern New Mexico. In 2005 and 2006 he served on the Santa Fe Short Story Festival Committee which included writers Rudolfo Anaya, David Morrell, and Denise Chavez. He is a long-time member of Santa Fe’s Dante Study Group.