The Last Gondola

JACKET NOTES:  In his previous books centering on the American expatriate Urbino Macintyre and his close friend Barbara, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, Edward Sklepowich has given readers elegant stories set in Venice and shimmering with the historic city’s atmosphere and its collection of artists and fashionable foreigners. In this latest episode, however, the author turns to a characteristic of the city that he has hinted at but never quite elaborated--an almost Gothic feeling of dark and frightening secrets.
Urbino has be fruitlessly trying to gain an interview with Samuel Possle, a wealthy, very old American about whom Urbino is writing a biography. Meanwhile, the Contessa has a problem of her own: items have been disappearing from her home, and she is distressed, not only for the losses, but because she fears she is losing her memory. The Contessa tell Urbino that if he provides an explanation for the missing objects, she will try something she has up her sleeve to bring Possle around. From Urbino’s first meeting with Possle, seemingly unrelated events move ominously toward one another. A young man falls to his death in the canal. Urbino’s visits to Possle become more and more chilling--and yield very little for the hopeful biographer. As all the puzzles come together in one dramatic catastrophe, even the mystery of Barbara’s missing items turns out to have a dark and bizarre solution.
(© Thomas Dunne Books)