Janet van Eeden

A Great Holiday Listen!

Revisado: 12-31-19

Dead in Venice is the perfect holiday listen. A slightly anarchic author, Bella Tyson, is coming out of a messy divorce with a narcissistic husband and is still licking her wounds. When a mysterious fan donates her apartment in Venice to her favourite author, Bella takes up the offer gladly, especially since writer's block threatens to stop her penning her next in a successful series of crime mystery novels. Venice is the perfect place to find inspiration, and Bella can't wait to get her "Eat, Pray, Love" on, as she puts it. By chance, she meets up with a sensitive Englishman, Will, who just happens to be a detective. She asks him to accompany her on an excursion, which he does, but she finds that everywhere they go, gruesome murders seem to follow them. Will asks her to help him uncover the perpetrators of the horrific murders, which seem to inspired by a book of ghost stories left for Bella by her benefactor. The dead begin to fill Bella's dreams with premonitions and she finds herself intrigued but at a loss to understand who could be carrying out the string of atrocities. Like all good crime novels, the gore is tangible, but the wit of the protagonist is delightful, putting a humorous spin on even the most horrific murders. In the end, Bella discovers a number of things: ghosts do seem to be able to communicate with the dead; her benefactor is not all she seems to be, and, most surprisingly, she is deeply in love with Will. The plot thickens as all threads lead to a single source, and Bella has to reevaluate her whole concept of justice. In spite of having gruesome murders throughout the novel, and in spite of the subject matter being traumatic at times, this is a thoroughly entertaining book, mainly due to the creativity of the author, who writes with an engaging self-awareness and eye for the absurd. I recommend Dead in Venice very highly indeed.

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