The Family Tomb (Gilbert novel)

The Family Tomb is a 1969 suspense novel by the British mystery and thriller writer Michael Gilbert published by Harper & Row in the United States in 1970 and the year before by Hodder and Stoughton in England as The Etruscan Net. It was Gilbert's 14th novel and takes place entirely in Florence, Italy, a few years after the great flood of the Arno river in 1966 caused serious damage to that city. Like many British of Gilbert's Establishment standing in life, he had a great fondness for Italy and set a number of his books there, including Death in Captivity, a harrowing mystery based on his time in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. Except for Captivity, however, most of the other books have only a portion of their events set in Italy—in The Family Tomb everything transpires within a few miles of the Ponte Vecchio and central Florence.

Reception and/or Appraisal

The New York Times and Kirkus Reviews had very different appraisals of it:

The New York Times: There is a bit more to be said, however, for the non–series novel, a more exacting task, demanding the development, each time, of a new structure, new images, new milieu, fresh basic characterization. That brings us to England's Michael Gilbert, a most creative author who has followed this latter course with unusual consistency of quality. The most gratifying feature of Mr. Gilbert's latest, THE FAMILY TOMB (Harper & Row, $5.95), is that the story is eminently satisfying and there is not the slightest intimation that the author has rigged the action. Englishman Robert Broke, following the death of his wife, has settled into the uneventful operation of an art gallery in Florence. Uneventful, that is, until the archeological excavations of the renowned scientist, Professor Bronzini, pique his listless curiosity. Bronzini is probing the extensive tombs of a 5th century pirate, and valuable relics may be expected. Only a faint suspicion that all is not well engages Broke's mind, until a friend (a restorer of relics), is murdered. Then Broke becomes involved in both the murder investigation and the fascinating vagaries of Italian politics.

Kirkus Reviews: A tedious, cluttered and overelaborated enterprise about Etruscologist Robert Broke, living in Florence; Professor Bronzini who is opening up some tombs; and Tina, Broke's youthful housekeeper whose father—a too fine craftsman—works for the Professor until Broke is accused of accidentally killing him. The Professor is "working some sort of fiddle" but so may be his adopted son—or the Mafiosi—and there's lots of other farinaceous nonsense. Unless you're very elderly, like Broke, "an anachronism," you won't dig the dig.