Venetian Blood:
Murder in a Sensuous City

I have to admit, France is not the only perfect location for a literary setting! Italy can be quite the place, can’t it? You may have in mind of course the classic Death in Venice. I also remember fondly one of the last books set in Italy I reviewed here, Hell’s Gate.
Today, I’m inviting you to Venice with a very tantalizing mystery: Venetian Blood.

Anna, in her 40s, works for the US Treasury Department, going after financial crimes. This is not her first time in Italy. A few months ago, after a painful divorce, she even had a brief affair with Count Sergio Corrin in Milan.

When she’d first met him, he had adopted the guise of a bella figura: respectful, courteous, and soft-spoken. Underneath, however, lurked a calculating scoundrel.
Chapter 1

Scoundrel to the point of blackmailing her and putting her professional life at risk.
So she’s back, in Venice this time, trying to meet with him and get out of this mess. Unfortunately, some unexpected events happen shortly after her arrival, and things get even more murky, as troubled as the Venetian canals. She ends up being suspected of murder!
We follow her for 12 days in the “City of Bridges” with her friend Margo, a sneaky journalist. Together – but can she really trust her ? – they are going to try to find information to identify the real killer and clear her name. It is not that easy. They meet a lot of people, and the higher they go along the social ladder, the higher they seem to find corruption.

I thoroughly enjoyed Venetian Blood, especially for the ambiance and the amazing beauty of the descriptions, the architecture, the water, as well as the tourists!
The author managed really well to convey the contradictory nature of the city and its reflection on several suspicious characters with a shady past.

The boat stopped again, only to groan, tear away from the illuminated buildings, and head into the blackness once more. Each stop was a luminescent island in the dark. The boat was a needle, threading the glowing pearls of an enormous necklace. Did the necklace grace the throat of a vibrant and beautiful woman or that of a trollop, painted and decayed? Venice’s enveloping night cloak made it impossible to tell.

Alongside the favored palazzos lurked their dark, ignored sisters, the city’s abandoned children, tilting into muddy solitude from which they could never be extracted.
Chapter 2

I really felt I was following Anna in the narrow streets, along the canals, though I would certainly not have walked where she did alone by night… I may have expected more cautiousness from a woman in her 4os. But maybe she’s not her total self because of her recent divorce and all that she’s going through right now.

I also enjoyed the chapter titles and several other short passages in Italian.
My only regret is that some passages were a bit too long for me, especially about money laundering.
The ending was quite surprising, almost out of the blue, but it did actually made sense and explained a lot about Anna’s life.
I’m looking forward to next book by Christine Evelyn Volker, set in Peru this time.

VERDICT: Very atmospheric. Beautiful descriptions and suspenseful scenes in the enchanting and dangerous Venice.

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK?
What’s your favorite book set in Venice?
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