Our book covers two international trade shows a year, and we'd consider more non-U.S. show coverage if we had local freelancers who could attend shows, take photos and write products.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to recruit local freelancers in, say, Germany, the U.K. and Italy?

You could try http://www.sourcewire.com/journalist/search.php

It's a UK site that has quite an extensive list of freelancers both in the UK and Europe.

Good Luck!