'' The Faces of Angels '' , published in the UK in 2006 and cited by BBC Radio 4 's “ Front Row ” as one of the six best thrillers of the year , was the first of three novels by Grindle to combine elements of psychological suspense with the police procedural genre in an Italian setting , having a common character in Florentine ispettore Alessandro Pallioti , with the two followup novels having the additional dimension of " interweaving modern plots with story lines set at critical moments in Italian 20th century history . '' The Villa Triste '' is the story of two sisters living in Florence in 1943 , during the partisan resistance to Nazi occupation . '' The Lost Daughter '' is based on the kidnapping and murder of Italian politician and former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 . " Purportedly Grindle 's choice of Florence as her preferred literary locale was the result of several trips she and her husband made to Florence in the first years of the twenty-first century . Their first trip was occasioned when in the wake of the 9/11 crisis of 2001 Grindle and her husband had a discussion about " what they would choose to do if the world were going to fly to pieces . " Grindel opined : " I want to go to the Uffizi . If World War III is going to break out , let 's go to Florence . " '' The Faces of Angels '' was nominated for an Edgar Award for best original paperback novel for 2012 the novel being published that year as a US trade paperback ; '' The Villa Triste '' - longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger award upon its 2010 UK publication - was published in the US ( as '' Villa Triste '' ) in 2013 while '' The Lost Daughter '' had UK and US publishing dates of respectively 2011 and 2015 . In 2003 Grindle and her husband David Mansfield Lutyens ( born 22 May 1926 ) were said to have been alternating residency between the English county of Devon and the US state of Massachusetts . In 2008 the couple settled in Blue Hill , Maine , the ancestral home of the Grindle family and the birthplace of Grindle 's father . In December 2017 Grindle was said to be working on a novel dealing with the Sicilian mafia of the late 20th century
9/11 crisis of 2001
September 11 attacks
Lucretia Grindle