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Book Summary and Reviews of The Italian Secret by Tara Moss

The Italian Secret by Tara Moss

The Italian Secret

A Novel

by Tara Moss

  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Published:
  • Dec 2025, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

#1 international bestselling author Tara Moss returns with an immersive post-war mystery as glamorous investigator Billie Walker follows a trail of secrets to Italy's sun-drenched Neapolitan coast.

Naples, 1943. Deep within a secret network of underground tunnels, a woman takes shelter from a wartime air raid and prays her husband will return home safe.

Pacific Ocean, 1907. A girl embarks on a lonely journey to begin a new life far from home.

Sydney, 1948. Billie Walker, recently returned from a stint as a wartime investigative journalist, has reopened her father's private inquiry office. One day, Billie is cleaning out old filing cabinets when she uncovers a dusty box whose contents just might upend everything Billie thought she knew about her late, beloved father.

Soon Billie is on the scent, uncovering the secrets of her family's past, traveling aboard the first postwar luxury passenger ship from Sydney to Naples in search of answers. And as the trail leads her toward two women whose history may be entwined with her own, she realizes she might be putting all three of them in harm's way. Billie's father had an enemy—one who may now be stalking Billie around the world—and the closer Billie gets to the truth, the more danger she finds herself in.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Australian PI Billie Walker makes game-changing family discoveries in the entertaining third installment of this historical mystery series...Moss manages to keep her copious plot threads from getting tangled, and she supplements the action with sumptuous period fashion and simmering romance...Fans won't be disappointed." —Publishers Weekly

"Moss' intrepid heroine is a good choice for fans of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs." —Booklist

"Another rip-roaring novel featuring one of my favorite detectives, Ms. Billie Walker. Moss's latest is both a tale of international intrigue and an intimate family drama, racing from the cosmopolitan city of Sydney to the war-torn shores of Naples. The mystery at its core is a doozy, the tension sublime. An unforgettable read." —Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Queen

"A richly layered, page-turning post-war mystery that explores, with depth and heart, how long-held secrets shape family and identity." —Susan Meissner, USA Today bestselling author of A Map to Paradise

This information about The Italian Secret was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Tara Moss

Tara Moss is an international bestselling author, human rights activist, documentary host, and model. Her first novel featuring Billie Walker, The War Widow, was an international bestseller. Her crime novels have been published in nineteen countries and thirteen languages, and her memoir, The Fictional Woman, was also a #1 international bestseller. She is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has received the Edna Ryan Award for significant contributions to feminist debate and for speaking out for women and children, and in 2017 she was recognized as one of the Global Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life.

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