Deadly to the Sight

If you love Venice, and who doesn't?, this writer always takes you on a lovely journey. His characters are fun, but his information about the city of Venice and its surrounding islands is better than a guide book. He includes restaurants (the good ones are notoriously hard to find in Venice and usually known only by the natives), overlooked art sites and local color that is impossible for a mere non-Italian speaking tourist to find. The plots are interesting, but it's really the local color that makes the series so special.

This book carries a great sense of the atmosphere of Venice, together with interesting characters, good plot, and good writing. If you enjoy books by the late Kate Ross, I think there's a good chance you'll like this. Although set in contemporary time, it has the richness of detail that a good historical novel carries, together with a sense of the kind of people who live in and enter into that detail. Urbino and his friend the Contessa, like many protagonists, are both outside of their setting, and very much in in physically and emotionally.