One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.
A conductor succumbs to cyanide at the famed Venice opera house, in the first mystery in the New York Times–bestselling, award-winning series. During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role. “One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever.” —The Washington Post “A brilliant writer . . . an immensely likable police detective who takes every murder to heart.” —The New York Times Book Review
Gustav von Aschenbach is a successful but ageing writer who travels to Venice for a holiday. One day, at dinner, Aschenbach notices an exceptionally beautiful young boy who is staying with his family in the same hotel. Soon his days begin to revolve around seeing this boy and he is too distracted to pay attention to the ominous rumours that have begun to circulate about disease spreading through the city.
An L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist | An O Magazine Best Book of the Year “Stylish… a compelling take on the eternal question of how good people morph into criminals. Terrific.”—People, Book of the Week From the author of The Destroyers comes an "intricately plotted and elegantly structured" (Newsday) story of intrigue and deception, set in contemporary Venice and featuring a young American couple who have set their sights on a risky con. When Nick Brink and his boyfriend Clay Guillory meet up on the Grand Canal in Venice, they have a plan in mind—and it doesn’t involve a vacation. Nick and Clay are running away from their turbulent lives in New York City, each desperate for a happier, freer future someplace else. Their method of escape? Selling a collection of counterfeit antiques to a brash, unsuspecting American living out his retirement years in a grand palazzo. With Clay’s smarts and Nick’s charm, their scheme is sure to succeed. As it turns out, tricking a millionaire out of money isn’t as easy as it seems, especially when Clay and Nick let greed get the best of them. As Nick falls under the spell of the city’s decrepit magic, Clay comes to terms with personal loss and the price of letting go of the past. Their future awaits, but it is built on disastrous deceits, and more than one life stands in the way of their dreams. A Beautiful Crime is a twisty grifter novel with a thriller running through its veins. But it is also a meditation on love, class, race, sexuality, and the legacy of bohemian culture. Tacking between Venice’s soaring aesthetic beauty and its imminent tourist-riddled collapse, Bollen delivers a "brilliantly conceived international crime story" (Good Morning America).
AUDIBLE CRIME GRANT FINALIST 2018 Award-winning crime novelist Bella Tyson has it all: a successful career, devoted fans - and a bad case of writer's block. So when a fan sends her a book of Venetian ghost stories and offers her the use of an apartment near Piazza San Marco, Bella jumps at the chance to get her Eat Pray Love on, consume her bodyweight in gelato and explore the atmospheric canals of Venice.She meets Will, a mild-mannered, middle class Interpol agent working in the city, and is swept away by him. And when a series of gruesome murders occur he's on the case - with Bella in tow.Her writer's block is well and truly cured, her new novel is under way, and she's madly in love. But Bella realises that not everything in Venice is as it seems...PRAISE FOR 'DEAD IN VENICE': "Absolutely stonking book. Rom-com meets crime in such a fresh and refreshing way. Dirty laughed through half of the book and cried at the end. Amazing book." "Bella is the kind of heroine most women would love to be and Will the kind of man we'd love to meet. Funny, loud-mouthed, mature protagonists with flaws, curves and the kind of wit that makes Fiona Leitch's writing reminiscent of Richard Curtis' films.""Oh what fun! Hilarious and witty protagonist in one of the best cities in the world. Suspenseful and kept me hooked.""Ms Leitch's light tone contrasts with the very serious subject matter, which makes it all the more emotional and powerful. It is in turn horrifying, funny, tender, hopeful, or sad. This is a courageous book, devoid of sentimentality but full of sentiment.""A combination of gritty crime thriller, hilarious rom-com, with a splash of the heart-wrenching emotions. And it works.""An entertaining mash-up of rom-com and crime.""DEAD IN VENICE made me fall in love with fiction again."
'An unputdownable thriller' Gregory Dowling 'It is no surprise to find that Philip Gwynne Jones lives in Venice... art and architecture interweave into a story that builds to an almost surreal climax' Daily Mail ***** Murder is the deadliest art . . . An invitation to an exclusive event during the Venetian Biennale gives Honorary Consul Nathan Sutherland the perfect chance to drink prosecco in the sunshine and meet some of the greats of the art world. And then a world-famous critic is decapitated by one of the installations in the British Pavilion. A terrible accident, it seems, until a postcard is discovered in the victim's pocket: an image of Judith beheading Holofernes. But this is not just a one-off. Before long, three more postcards have been sent out with deadly results. As the bodies pile up, Nathan finds himself getting closer and closer to the truth, but when he himself receives an image of Death bearing a scythe, it becomes a race against time to save his own life . . . ***** Praise for Philip Gwynne Jones 'I devoured all Philip's novels and felt transported to Venice with a new intimacy' Val McDermid 'Superb - always gripping, beautifully constructed and vivid' Stephen Glover 'Clever and great fun' The Times 'Sinister and shimmering, The Venetian Game is as haunting and darkly elegant as Venice itself' L.S. Hilton, bestselling author of Maestra 'The Venetian setting is vividly described... good, fluid writing makes for easy reading' Literary Review 'Un-put-downable . . . If you love Venice, you'll love this because you'll be transported there in an instant. If you've not been to Venice, read this book and then go. If you like intrigue, and a clever plot, you'll love this book' Amazon reviewer, 5*****
Trouble strikes a group of tourists in Italy: “Reginald Hill delivers literate, complex, and immensely satisfying thrillers” (Orlando Sentinel). Sarah and Michael Masson are on holiday in Italy, and their tour is making its way to Venice—Italy’s most romantic city. But so far the trip hasn’t been especially romantic. Michael has little patience for Sarah’s sentimental nature or her stubborn insistence on socializing with their fellow travelers. Sarah is tiring of Michael’s cynicism. But among their little group of tourists, there is even darker strife: One woman confides to Michael that her husband is violent, while that same husband propositions Sarah shamelessly. And eventually they are joined by two mysterious drifters—one of whom claims to be a mercenary. The journey was meant to be a sunny escape, but storm clouds are clearly brewing. And as Sarah questions her marriage, the police are questioning Michael about a murder . . . From the Diamond Dagger–winning author of the Dalziel and Pascoe Mysteries, this is a novel of secrets, betrayals, and twisting, turning suspense. “Reginald Hill is quite simply one of the best at work today.” —The Boston Globe “An excellent English author of crime fiction.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
As a city that seems to float between Europe and Asia, removed by a lagoon from the tempos of terra firma, Venice has long seduced the Western imagination. Since the 1797 fall of the Venetian Republic, fantasies about the sinking city have engendered an elaborate series of romantic clichés, provoking conflicting responses: some modern artists and intellectuals embrace the resistance to modernity manifest in Venice's labyrinthine premodern form and temporality, whereas others aspire to modernize by "killing the moonlight" of Venice, in the Futurists' notorious phrase. Spanning the history of literature, art, and architecture—from John Ruskin, Henry James, and Ezra Pound to Manfredo Tafuri, Italo Calvino, Jeanette Winterson, and Robert Coover—Killing the Moonlight tracks the pressures that modernity has placed on the legacy of romantic Venice, and the distinctive strains of aesthetic invention that resulted from the clash. In Venetian incarnations of modernism, the anachronistic urban fabric and vestigial sentiment that both the nation-state of Italy and the historical avant-garde would cast off become incompletely assimilated parts of the new. Killing the Moonlight brings Venice into the geography of modernity as a living city rather than a metaphor for death, and presents the archipelago as a crucible for those seeking to define and transgress the conceptual limits of modernism. In strategic detours from the capitals of modernity, the book redrafts the confines of modernist culture in both geographical and historical terms.
Enjoy Agatha Christie's beloved classic, Hallowe'en Party--the inspiration for the major motion picture A Haunting in Venice, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh--with a new introduction by Michael Green, screenwriter of the film. When a Halloween party turns deadly, it falls to Hercule Poirot to unmask a murderer. At a Halloween party, Joyce--a surly thirteen-year-old--boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no one believes her, she storms off home. But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in an apple-bobbing tub. Famed detective Hercule Poirot is called in to investigate. Set against a night of trickery and the occult, it's up to Poirot to uncover the real evil presence responsible for this ghastly deed.
"Drifter" by Emily Mandel was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013, edited by Otto Penzler and Lisa Scottoline Original stories by: Peter James, Emily St. John Mandel, Barbara Baraldi, Mike Hodges, Mary Hoffman, Maria Tronca, Matteo Righetto, Tony Cartano, Francesco Ferracin, Isabella Santacroce, Michelle Lovric, Francesca Mazzucato, Maxim Jakubowski, and Michael Gregorio. "Forget the magnificence of Venice's art, architecture, and music, and delve into this tour of the City of Water's murky depths...visions of a Venice not seen in tourist brochures." --Publishers Weekly "Editor Jakubowski does an excellent job of selecting a variety of stories that represent all strata of Venetian life, from tourists visiting for Carnevale to criminals running illegal operations in the bay...A must-read for lovers of Venice...the presence of a new and intriguing voices, many of them Italian, will pique the interest of international-mystery readers." --Booklist "Sex, food and real estate inspire 14 hot-blooded new takes on crime in the magical city of Venice...Rather than crimes of passion, this collection focuses on the passion of crime, painting its noir in robust tones rather than gritty gray." --Kirkus Reviews "Venice Noir, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, aims to shred through our preconceptions of this remarkable city. The 14 writers featured in this anthology of short stories take our travel brochure images of Venice and scatter them like confetti." --NY Journal of Books Maxim Jakubowski is a British editor and writer. Following a long career in book publishing, during which he was responsible for several major crime imprints, he opened London's mystery bookshop Murder One. He reviews crime fiction for the Guardian, runs London's Crime Scene Festival, and is an advisor to Italy's annual Courmayeur Noir in Festival. His latest crime novel is Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer, and he edits the annual Best British Mysteries series.
