Alibi: A Novel

This is a very good read with several moral/social conflicts that create interesting characters.

Venice shortly after World War II; a place where people from all over congregate trying to recreate the carefree pre-war ambience that prevailed in this beautiful city. There's a cloud, however, over Venice: a remnant of the possible "collaboration" of some of its citizens during both the Fascist and Nazi regimes. The plot unfolds very slowly, with Venice as the constant background, and like this city, there are many unusual twists and turns in the story. You really don't know what to expect, or who to believe, until almost the end of the book. It's tautly writen, with believeable characters, and definitely holds your interest from first page to last!

It's 1945, World War II is over and Adam Miller has been discharged from the army. He wasn't a regular soldier but was assigned to find out who committed Nazi war crimes and to bring those people to justice. He's hoping to leave all of that behind him by traveling from New York and staying with his mother, Grace, who now lives in Venice, Italy. While in Venice, Adam is very much out of sorts. He can't sleep in his mother's cold house so he takes long morning walks around the place. During the night he goes to all the parties thrown by his mother's rich expatriate friends. Adam also meets Gianni Maglione, a very successful Italian doctor, and his mother's newest flame. Gianni and Grace had known each since they were young adults but Grace eventually married Adam's father and Gianni married another women. Now Grace and Gianni are a couple since Adam's father died many years earlier and Gianni's wife has also passed away. At one of the many social events that he frequents Adam meets Claudia Grassini a Jewish woman who survived the war by becoming the mistress of an Italian Fascist. The two immediately fall in love. When Adam's mother and Gianni finally announce their engagement, Adam is far from thrilled but he decides to try to be happy for his mother. Adam invites Claudia to his mother's engagement party, but the moment she sees Gianni she physically attacks him. She claims the previous year, while her father was sick in the hospital, Gianni pointed him out to the Nazis thereby sending her father to the death camps. Of course Gianni denies it, but Claudia knows the incident did happened - she was there. Adam contacts a friend of his who is still in the army assigned to search for Nazis and asks him to check to see if Gianni is truly the Nazi collaborator that Claudia claims he his. His friend sends Rosa, an Italian operative and former partisan, to help Adam discover the truth. When Adam is involved in a very violent act he soon learns how important an alibi is and more importantly, how the right alibi helped the Venetians survive during the war. Author Joseph Kanon weaves a very complex plot in this brilliantly written book. Filled with unforgettable characters, the story travels with the reader through the canals of Venice and the beauty of the city. The plot quickens as Adam tries to differentiate between different kinds of evil, while trying to figure out who and what to believe and exactly how he fits into all of it. ALIBI is a love story that delves into Venetian life after the war when the inhabitants were trying to forget, or rather ignore, what they felt they had to do when the Germans occupied their city. The book is superbly written and when you've finished the over 400 pages you come away with a sense of what Venice was going through during that painful period in its history as the citizens tried to heal themselves after the second World War. The readers also share how those years affected each of the cast of characters in

"After the war, my mother took a house in Venice." Kanon's book starts with a sentence as succinct and assured as Karen Blixen's "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.' We're in the hands of a master storyteller, in both cases. Kanon's book transcends the novel-of-intrigue genre with which he's been associated. It's impossible to summarize the plot of Alibi without spoiling it. But if you can imagine a Crime and Punishment in which Petrovich, the implacable investigator, is none other than Raskolnikov himself, the perpetrator of the crime - then you'll have some sense of the darkening territory into which Kanon takes us. Remarkably, this book proceeds largely by dialogue. But what dialogue! Kanon's ear is beautifully tuned to the speech of smart people, talk charged with feeling and intelligence. Adam Miller's discovery of the limits of his moral intuition is a chilling trip down a narrowing tunnel. But the reader's pleasure in the conversational exchanges, and in the subtle swerves in Adam's perception of reality, makes the novel glitter through the darkness. Looming behind everything is that other ambiguous character, Venice itself, "La Serenissima", her eternal and corrupt beauty luminously evoked by Kanon. There's a boat chase, in the end. But that's not what makes this book a thriller.

I loved this book; no one is quite who they appear to be and the ground is constantly shifting around the protagonist. Just when you think you have it all figured out, the author sends you off on another path. Although I do agree with the Editorial Review that the romance is not entirely believable, that did not detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Joseph Kanon is the best selling author of Los Alamos and The Good German. Critics have compared his writing style to le Carre, Greene, and Orwell, but I found Kanon's prose to be more provocative and accessible. Adam Miller is weary of his work. As a U.S. Army war crimes investigator in post war Germany, he's systematically separated the truly evil Nazis from citizens who merely closed their eyes to fanaticism gone beyond their control. When his tour of duty ends in 1946, Adam visits his widowed mother in Venice. She has returned to familiar surroundings in hopes of being happy again. Venice initially appears to be untouched by the war, but destruction takes many forms. Bombed out buildings are not always the worst aftermath of war. At first, Adam is at loose ends. Memories of death camps leave him sleepless and disoriented. He wanders the canals and alleyways in hopes the city's beauty will provide solace or at least energize his spirit. His mother is engaged to Dr. Gianni Maglione, a betrothal he suspects is for her money. Old family friend Bertie Howard practices a forced gaiety, which Adam finds improbable. A wintry Venice with its cold rains and creeping fogs depresses Adam, until he meets Claudia Grassini. Making love in secret, seedy hideaways brings delight at first, a fleeting comfort as awful truths unravel. Wherever Adam turns, nothing is as it appears to be. People do things to survive they wouldn't consider under normal circumstances. They bend, ignore, pretend. And no one has perfected the art of surviving better than those who live in Venice. Adam suspects Dr. Maglione may be more than a fortune hunter. He may be a Nazi sympathizer, or worse. And Claudia has her own secrets to protect. One unexpected act of violence smothers passion until remaining lovers becomes nothing more than an airtight alibi for Claudia and Adam. Kanon's writing style is personable and seductive. His characters are real and human, fully developed. Venice becomes a living entity and the winter weather a chilling accomplice to tragedy because Joseph Kanon is a skillful wordsmith. Established fans will enthusiastically embrace Alibi. Readers not familiar with Kanon's work should be converted rapidly to devotees.