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the
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A-D |
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I-K
M-P |
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Sager, Gordon The
rape of Europa: a Venetian fantasy |
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Michael Allen
Alessandro
Barbaro
Simon Barnes |
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Grace
Brophy A
deadly paradise
Laura Brylawski-Miller
The Medusa's Smile
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David
Adams Cleveland
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Robert Coover Pinocchio
in Venice
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Wilkie
Collins The Haunted Hotel: a mystery of modern Venice One for committed fans of Collins or Venice only methinks. The plot concerns the suspicious death of an English lord who is stolen from under the pre-matrimonial nose of our heroine by a mysterious dark-haired woman (are blonde women never mysterious?) of a certain repute with her 'brother' in tow. They are married and go to live in Venice, where the aforementioned death follows. The tragic palazzo is then turned into a luxurious hotel conveniently part-financed by the lord's brother. Venice is thus an offstage presence until the family goes forth to inspect their investment half way through the book and spooky gruesome stuff ensues. The whole sorry business is revealed when the raven-haired temptress goes bonkers and, of course, writes a play about all that happened. Convenient. |
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Arnaud Delalande The
Dante Trap
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Sarah
Dunant In
the Company of the Courtesan |
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Chris Ewan The Good
Thief's Guide to Venice
Marina Fiorato The
Glassblower of Murano
Mickey
Friedman Venetian Mask
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Cornelia Funke The
Thief Lord
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Jon Courtenay
Grimwood |
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The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini This is the first novel in a trilogy set in an alternative version of 15th Century Venice. Cynics might say that the whole 'alternative' thing means that you don't have to get your facts right. So this Venice is ruled by the Milioni family, descendants of Marco Polo, and the ruler is called the Duke, not the Doge, there are gondolini, but no gondolas, and there are princesses, but there are also werewolves and vampires, so such quibbling sounds like quibbling, I admit, and most of the differences are explained. The story initially concerns itself with the trials of Giulietta, of the ruling family and chaffing at her status as a pawn in an impending arranged marriage. A bit 'young adult' then, at the outset, but the twisty politics and dark stuff soon take over, with some nasty bits of brutality to take it truly out of pre-teen territory. The other plot strand concerns Tycho, an angelically-pretty vampire boy and his grooming to the ranks of the assassini who are, as you may have guessed from the name, a guild of pastry chefs. The characters are convincing, and convincingly conflicted and in their allegiances and relationships. The Venetian locations are authentically from the murky and stinky tendency - they come off as very real if sometimes somewhat vague. Details like the then-wooden Rialto Bridge and existence of a church of Santa Lucia show that Mr G knows his Venice. But real places are mixed with the imagined, with the imagined allowing the invention of families, saints and even patera. The plot never fails to grip and pull, though, and the final battle leaves you breathless and panting for the sequels. But the author quashes my quibbles, and proves his Venice-cred big time, by answering The Venice Questions. The Outcast Blade: Act Two of the Assassini The story continues, with Tycho, the beautiful monster, who emerges as our hero in the first book, returning to Venice an object of talk and fear. Everyone seems to want a piece of him, to love or exploit mostly, and he's still enamoured of Giulietta, although he's adolescently unable to communicate this. JCG has denied any young-adult intentions with regard to this series, but there's more than a whiff of Twilight to this still-stilted romance. Tycho comes out more as a vampire in this volume too, and there's generally more of the supernatural going on; with a pack of werewolves, a couple of mini-dragons, a spy-bat and a very handy all-seeing bowl of water. Also made more overt is the Othello-like plot strand I admit I didn't spot before. (My revealing story details for this one would spoil you for reading the first one even more.) The plot is dominated by manipulation and politicking, with more talk than action, but a big finale showdown on a swampy Giudecca. Venice is still a mixture of the invented and the authentic, but the sense of the city is unarguable. The unravelling of the strands of deception and shifting allegiances grip more than the topography or plot, to be honest, and keep you reading. Trilogies traditional dip and merely bridge a bit in the middle, and there is a whiff of this at first, but the story whips along in the second half, towards an almost-happy ending which leaves us happily not hanging from a cliff. One more to go. |
 The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini The set up for this final part follows so closely upon the end of the second part that to say much would be to plot-spoil for those of you yet to read that one. So I'll merely say that at the outset Tycho the angelic vampire is now firmly established as Lady Giulietta's lover, and more shakily trusted by (and trusting of) the Regent Duchess Alexa. Prince Alonzo is about to get the punishment he so deserves after his crimes in the second book, and the idiot Duke Marco is proving less witless than he seemed. Exile is the Prince's fate, but he commits one last brutal crime before his ship sails much beyond the Lido, so Tycho sets off in pursuit. Venice is as dark as in the previous volumes, and icy, with games and riding on the frozen lagoon and carriages on the Grand Canal. It's also here still prone to odd naming adjustments like San Maggiore church, San Croce and the Arzanale. The plotting remains tight and kinetic and with just the right strength to the whiffs of the supernatural. And strong they are this time: Tycho's vampiric tendency becomes a stronger and more useful plot feature, the werewolf heir to the Holy Roman Empire is still in play and Tycho's co-assassin Amelia is able to change into a big cat. When the heir, Frederick, turns up in Venice, sent to woo the Tycho-less Giulietta for dynastic purposes, he falls for her truly and things turn a bit teen-romance and Twilight, but JCG's grip on the plot and characters remains sure, mature and convincing. The ending is bit reliant on some supernatural cavalry, but is satisfying, and even heart-warming. |
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The
lizard's bite
Lucifer's
shadow
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Katie Hickman
The Pindar Diamond
Mary
Hoffman Stravaganza
- City of Masks |
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Maxim
Jakubowski ed. Venice Noir For fans of the film genre 'noir' means a deceptive dame leading some poor sap by his libido into murdering her husband, with said sap ending up regretting it in prison, or his grave. In black and white. I'm guessing a looser definition is going to apply in this collection. Editor Jakubowski introduces and then we're into the first section - four stories involving Venetian residents. They're all written by Italians and being about people still living in Venice have a tendency towards Mestre and Cannaregio. The Ghetto recurs too, as does casual racism, if in the distancing guise of unreliable narrators. The anti-Chinese tendency here is in keeping with Venetian authenticity too. Each story is better than its predecessor, in style and content, with the final author, Francesca Mazzucato even making you want to read more by her. All the authors in this bit seem little translated into English and all seem to want, judging by their biographies anyway, to stress their transgressive tendencies. The next section is called Shadows of the Past but these are not historical tales, although they do rack up the supernatural element, with Michelle Lovric and Maxim J. himself contributing a story each. But it's the last story in this section, Desdamona Undicesima by Isabella Santacroce that finally gives us something truly dark and disturbing. From then on it's pretty much all tales of tourists meeting grisly ends. The only light relief coming when one of them arrives at their hotel near Piazza San Marco to find three Alfa Romeo police cars blocking the street outside. Oh, and there's a Murano-glass penis plot-device too. The standout in this sequence is the story of a bitter old woman who has her own way of dealing with the tourist problem, and it's also one of two stories told from the resident rat perspective. Stories set in Venice tend to be about romance or death, and there's little love on these pages. The Venice here is the Venice of Don't Look Now and The Comfort of Strangers, and noir = stories with murders it seems. Some good stuff but it's all a bit, well, monochrome. Me, I prefer light+shade, but if you like things dark... |
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Joseph Kanon Alibi It’s 1946 and Adam Miller leaves the army and his job tracking down Nazis and goes to stay with his mother newly relocated to Venice. His mother has met someone she wants to marry, it seems, and then Adam meets a Jewish woman at a party who tells a story that makes him violently unwilling to let the marriage go ahead. Venice sparkles as ever, and everyone has their dark secrets and much is not, as you might imagine, what it seems. The period is a fertile setting for those old Venetian themes of death and deception but this novel has ambitions beyond murder-mystery plot twisting and it achieves them, with satisfying amounts of moral ambiguity and believably conflicted characters. The quality of the writing grips you from the off, and Venice is integral and lovingly conjured. The blurb mentions the ‘piazzas and canals of Venice’ even though, as most of us know, there’s only one piazza in Venice. But that’s just the blurb – more puzzling is the novel’s recurrent use of a location near the Accademia called San Ivo, when it seems to mean San Vio. But I pick nits, and this is one of the best Venetian reads you could hope for – because it’s much more than just a book that happens to be set in Venice: it’s about Venice at a particular point in its history, and how lives were being lost and ruined in ways both particular to the time and horribly familiar and universal.
Sarah Bruce Kelly Vivaldi's Muse |
Ivo Knottnerus The Secret of Paolo - the life of the renaissance painter Paolo Veronese in Venice I have read some tedious books for the sake of this website, but this one defeated me after very few pages. The language is so stilted and the process of making a story up from sparse facts is so nakedly obvious and tortuously done. It may be the translation, from the Dutc, but I think not. Jane Langton The thief of Venice In which Homer's wife Mary takes centre stage, as she wanders Venice, photographing every corner, and comes under the spell of a handsome murderer, whilst Homer fondles rare books. Another plot strand involving one of Homer's colleagues gets woven in, all towards a satisfyingly exciting denouement. This is still cosy stuff, to be sure, but acquires some quite stirring emotion as Mary confesses to her lapse, and later when some tragic history emerges. But both of the Homer Kelly mysteries I've read (the other is set in Florence) have had our supposed hero sidelined by other characters. Is this what I get for coming to a series late? Shame about the standard of proofreading too - we get the composer Haydn referred to as Hayden, twice! And I can’t believe that someone scientifically testing Venice’s irreplaceable holy relics would be allowed to take them home. Good Venetian atmosphere, though, and the problems of getting around during the acqua alta are well evoked and worked into the plot. Tanith Lee Faces under water This is the first of a series of books set in a fictional city based not-loosely on Venice. The city is called Venus, it's full of canals; it has gondoliers, but they are called wanderliers; and it has a carnival where all must go masked, on pain of death. Making it not the real city means Ms Lee can take liberties - not least with geography and place names - whilst retaining the spirit of the place. And retain it she does, and turns it up a few notches into darker territory and deeds, darker even than are usual for Venetian Gothic fictions. It means that she can also create another island, lost under the sea, with sea-weed draped statues and fish-infested palazzos. The plot plays with not-unusual Venetian themes of deception and masks and magic and death. But it's all cranked up a few notches, as I say, and nasty and sexy. Some good vivid writing, too, if you can forgive occasional bursts of the incomprehensible and the overwrought, which I can when there's as many bits of glowing and sensual writing as you get here. Horrible cover though. |
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Donna
Leon |
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Death in a
strange country 2 |
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Blood
from a stone
14
The Golden Egg 22 |
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Michelle
Lovric |
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Carnevale
The Book
of Human Skin
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The Undrowned Child
Talina in the Tower
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Sophie Masson The
Madman of Venice Having had some mighty fine experiences with such works by Phillip Pullman, Cornelia Funke and Mary Hoffman my expectations of works meant for 'young adults' are not low. But being aimed at this market can also result in works with somewhat less ambitious intentions, it seems. It's not that I didn't enjoy this tale of pirates, kidnapping, love and learning set in Venice in the 17th Century, it's just that it didn't have that extra adult-grabbing quality that the best of this kind of stuff has. Venice is a backdrop here that is picturesque, but lacks detail and doesn't breathe, and the story twists and holds you, but didn't move me. There's more overt romance, of the slushy boy/girl kind, than I'm used to too, but then again I'm not the target audience. Susan Ashley Michael Crossing the Bridge of Sighs Around these parts we like unusual, we like quirky and we like to be wrong-footed. A novel which begins with a mature woman, called Claire, arriving in Venice after a marital break up, meeting an old friend who's intent on fixing her up with a new man, sets up certain sigh-inducing expectations. These expectations are swiftly challenged, though, with details like her marital rift having been caused by finding hubby having a trousers-down encounter with another chap in Pčre Lachaise, and her frequent encounters with the ghosts of long-dead famous Venice lovers. There's also the scene where Claire takes a gondola out into the lagoon to dispose of the husband's clothing. In a scene very reminiscent of Henry James's disposal of Constance Fenimore Woolson's clothing she has trouble with his non-sinking underpants and requests a loan of the gondolier's pole to give them a good poking in the crotch. See what I mean about quirky? Claire is a travel writer, in the minimal mould of Anne Tyler's Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist, and so she gets around, meets people, looks at art, and generally does Venice proud for us, not putting a foot wrong in the Venetian detailing, if fact. Recent bereavement is another aspect shared with the Anne Tyler novel, which adds more unexpected narrative wrinkles. Cultural references and conversations abound, almost to excess, but when these involve Hitchcock's Rear Window, the eroticism of discussing John Ruskin, John Cornell's boxes, and someone fainting in front of a Bellini to quibble seems like quibbling. Events pan out in a pretty non-standard way for our heroine too, so sealing this as a read that is romantic but also realistic, and recommended.
Michael Morpurgo The
Mozart Question |
Lisa
Jean Murphy
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Donna
Jo Napoli Daughter
of Venice |
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Ashkin
Ozcan The
Second Venice |
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Iain
Pears |
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Anthony Powell Temporary
kings
Juan
Manuel de Prada The
Tempest |
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Barbara
Quick Vivaldi’s
Virgins |
Thomas
Quinn |
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Roberta Rich The Midwife of Venice
James
Ringo Uncle
Theodor |
 William Rivière By the Grand Canal The First World War has just ended and its toll is still sinking in as the treaties are being signed. Hugh Thurne is a British diplomat who has gotten into the habit of using Venice as a base and refuge. He has friends there, in the Venier family, and a lover in the shape of a gorgeous young singer at the Fenice. His wife doesn't love him, his best friend has been killed in action, and his best friend's wife comes to live with him. His best friend's son falls for the dark-eyed daughter of the Venier family and old Giacomo Venier's health is failing. The viewpoints change, the making of history is discussed, love and lust is pondered, and love and death haunt the past and the future. This book reminded me nicely of early Iris Murdoch, in its ambitions if not its achievement, but it's a fine non-usual exploration of its time and of timeless concerns. It gives damn fine Venice too, both inside crumbling palazzos and out in gondolas. It really could have been set nowhere else. |
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André
Romijn Hidden
harmonies: |
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Jane
Turner Rylands |
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Lisa
St Aubin de Terán The
Palace |
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Marcus Sedgwick The
Kiss of Death
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Dennis Wheatley The Rape of Venice
Christopher
Whyte |
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Jim
Williams Scherzo
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Venice
continued... |
Historical
note: this novel mentions that the famous and swanky Hotel Bauer Grünwald (now called the Hotel Bauer) was the Nazi's hotel
of choice during WWII and that the Gestapo used it for torturing.
I assume that this is an historical fact, but the period is
skipped over on
The Jewels of
Paradise
here.
Miss Garnett reacts strongly to the spirituality of the Catholic
religion and becomes fascinated by the story of Tobias and the
Angel and moved by the art the story has inspired. As Venice
works its magic on a sensibility more used to Ealing, she
also gets caught up in the lives of various Venetians and
visitors, and her life begins to take on aspects of the Tobias
story. This is a novel with that strange indefinable extra
special something. 
