THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 47 Tuscan Bloodline: A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery David Wagner, Kindle Direct Publishing, 2025, $14.99/paperback, e-book available, 257 pages. In this ninth book in the Rick Montoya Italian Mystery series, our interpreter and amateur sleuth is asked to help a college buddy, Rocco Monti, search for his Tuscan roots. Rocco wants to cut through the family lore and find out why his great-grandfather left Italy in a hurry a century earlier. Was he in some kind of trouble? Was a young lady involved? Could there have been a murder? Montoya flies in from the U.S., and the two friends head to the walled village of Lucignano; but as they dig into the past in search of the truth, Rocco learns more about his Italian family than he expected. David Wagner is a retired Foreign Service officer who spent nine years with the U.S. Information Service (USIS) in Italy, never realizing that he was researching his future mystery novels. Other diplomatic assignments included Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Mary, live in Pueblo, Colorado. Falling Seven Times Mark G. Wentling, Archway Publishing, 2024, $24.99/paperback, e-book available, 318 pages. Desperate to provide for her family, Alya leaves her home in Ethiopia in search of work abroad. Her journey is fraught with physical and emotional challenges—difficult work conditions, language barriers, and cultural clashes—as she works to secure a better future for herself and her loved ones. Falling Seven Times illustrates the resilience and courage that labor migrants must summon each day as they face uncertainty while holding on to the hope of rising again. Readers will begin to understand the personal toll of labor migration. Mark Wentling was born in Wichita, Kansas. In 1967 he went to Honduras as a Peace Corps volunteer, and in 1970 he joined Peace Corps/Togo. He began his career with USAID in 1977 and served as principal officer in six African countries. He has visited all 54 countries in Africa. Now retired, he resides in Lubbock, Texas.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=