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Aaron Elkins' Gideon Oliver, the bone detective. I've read most. The first is more of a thriller, then the series settles into forensic whodunits, and travels the world-- central America, Egypt, Italy, Gibralter, England, France. Anywhere were forensic anthropologist Oliver finds old bones which (usually) turn out to be new.
Arthur Upfields "Boney" series.
I add my vote to Inspector Montalbano, and the TV series is great too. The books are actually written in Sicilian, with some Italian, and the comic relief character speaks a sort of bastard Sicilio-Italian jargon, fondly imagining he's speaking proper Italian, a type well recognised in Sicily. The translation (by a Sicilian speaker) does extremely well in my opinion. (I'm pleased to see a new short TV series of Montalbano has been made and is about to start here in Australia, subtitled of course.)
The Aurelio Zen series is good, too; and the locations which appear in the books are real. There is one story with the body dumped on a walled island in the Venetian lagoon, and yep, that island is exactly as described. I was put off for a long time by the improbable surname, thinking it made up; but apparently it's a real Venetian surname. So close to the Balkans, not all Venetian names sound Italian.
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