Giovanni Goes to Med School by Kathy Bryson

This is the first book in a series of humorous novellas set in a medical school in Atlanta, featuring Italian-American student Giovanni and his misadventures with supernatural forces.  I enjoyed the quirky humor in a very realistic seeming hospital setting.  The humor is light and at times dry, and it keeps the same tone through all the surprising events. 

The author also has a trio of contemporary romance books (award-winning) out that have the same light humor and paranormal fun.  This is book one in the series.

Giovanni is a sympathetic character, a young man who is struggling to forge a new path in his life away from his family in New Jersey.  The story moves along smoothly, with unexpected twists and turns, all with poor Giovanni struggling to be a decent, caring human being, and a medical professional under very trying circumstances.  I really felt for the guy!  He's a decent man in a very odd situation trying to do the best for his patient, no matter how weird the situation.

This is book two in her romance-paranormal trio

You could call this a horror story, but I like to think of it as a Twilight Zone story, with believable people experiencing very odd things.  The humane ending is touching, and fits well with the underlying decency throughout the story.  Very entertaining!

Book three in her trio of contemporary romances with paranormal elements

From the description of Giovanni Goes to Med School:

Everyone knows zombies aren’t real, no matter how fun. You don’t have to be a med student to know the dead do not get up and walk around in real life. Anyone who’s buried a pet in the backyard knows the dead don’t walk. They don’t even lurch.

So Giovanni is stunned when his patient sits up in the morgue and starts scolding. The night-shift was supposed be a relief, a chance to study in quiet and off-set ridiculous student loans. Babysitting a huge dog and a dead voodoo mambo were not part of the plan. Now he’s got to convince an unbelieving medical community to take action, so he can get back to learning about the dead – not the undead!

 Here's a direct link to Giovanni Goes to Med School and to the first book in the author's trio:

 

Please visit the author's website-blog.

Lost in the City of Flowers (History of Idan Series) by Maria C. Trujillo

Lost in the City of Flowers is one of those modern young-adult novels in which the only thing young-adult in it is the protagonist.  The writing is complex, and the themes and events are quite grown-up.  The teenaged female protagonist is transported back 544 years to Renaissance Florence, Italy, when young girls were sexual toys for men.

The writing in Lost in the City of Flowers is lyrical and prosaic, but not really convincing as a first person narration by the fourteen-year-old Violet.  The reader just needs to suspend their disbelief and go with it:

With the help of curiosity, clumsiness, and a tunnel, I had lost myself in Italy and in time.

Violet encounters historical personages:  

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Giuliano de' (annoyingly minus the necessary de') Medici
• Lorenzo de' Medici
• Botticelli
• Verrocchio
• Salai (out of his real time)
• Perugino
• Lippi

There is much in the book for fans of historical fiction.  The era's philosophy, geography, politics, customs, fashions, food come to life.  For fans of art history there are references to well-known stories relating to famous Italian Renaissance artists. 

The book is divided into three parts, each part charting a major event for Violet.  As the danger for Violet grows, she gives into temptations of ego and comes face to face with powerful people in the past.  Powerful people wish to control and dominate, and Violet's exciting adventures come because of them.

There are some punctuation and editing errors, but not many.  The map is too small, and does not accurately depict Medieval Florence.  The Prologue, while attention-grabbing, is not about the protagonist, and feels, with hindsight, a writer's trick. 

The first person narration by Violet, is written with some hindsight, when she returns to New York City, after her adventure is over.  This ruins the major suspenseful element in the story:  will Violet be able to return to her time?  We know that she does, from the start, because of the narrative form, so an omniscient narrator or third-person limited might have been a better choice.

Violet encounters romance and adventure in the past.  She also makes friends and experiences great sadness and some trauma.  The ending comes too quickly, so we cannot explore how her experiences have changed her, or how they have helped her grow up.  For a coming-of-age novel, that is strange.  The stage is set at the end for more time-traveling adventures in what the author calls the History of Idan Series, so perhaps we will see Violet's growth in the next book?  I hope so.

From the book's description:

Viola has always felt like she doesn’t belong.  With her mother halfway around the world, her sister away at school, and her father as her only friend, she keeps to herself and only dreams of becoming an artist.  The last thing a lonely fourteen-year-old girl wants for her birthday is to spend time with an old woman she doesn’t even know.  And she certainly doesn’t want to travel 544 years back in time to a place she’s only read about in books.

Armed with Idan, a mysterious pocket watch, she must navigate the perilous city to find a way home before she falls victim to the threats of Lorenzo the Magnificent.  For a girl that has a hard time meeting people, Viola manages to befriend the famous artist Leonardo da Vinci and gain the affections of the handsome Giuliano de' Medici.

To get back home Viola must find her voice and tap into her artistic abilities while she works in an artist’s workshop and encounters the enchanting work of some of the Renaissance’s most amazing artists.

This PBS documentary about the birth of the Italian Renaissance under the Medici family is a bit violet at times, but is an interesting recreation of the era in Lost in the City of Flowers.

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website which includes her blog.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Devil Will Come by Glenn Cooper

The Devil Will Come is a conspiracy thriller for adults, laced with historical fact and fiction.  The present-day setting is Rome, Italy, where a young nun and her family become the focal point of the culmination of a centuries-long plot to end Catholicism and replace it with an evil-worshiping group of psychopaths. 

Okay, yes, historical-conspiracy thriller plots can sound absurd, but with a skilful writer in charge, they can be very entertaining, and little bit edifying. This author is skilled in the art of conning the reader into accepting the unbelievable premise.  He has experience, with several historical-conspiracy thrillers to his name.  Readers get what they expect, and more.  Unlike some authors in the genre, this writer has big issues in the background of all his books.

The first scene in the book is at the Pope's palace in Rome in the Middle Ages

In The Devil Will Come, the nature of evil is examined.  Is it learned?  Is it a throwback to an earlier human era when a lack of conscience was an asset?  Do sociopaths play any positive role in society?  They hide in plain sight.  They sit on company boards.  They teach at universities.  They play sports professionally.  They hide their evil, but they are adept at spotting the like-minded.  At the heart of the all the scary bits in The Devil Will Come is the fact that people who seek out power are rarely good-hearted.

The author takes the reader from Rome in the present-day, to Rome in the first century A.D., to Rome in the Middle Ages.  Each period is credible, with historical facts to back up the author's depictions.  An ancient prophecy of the supremacy of evil is at the heart of the plot.  As always, there is a group that supports the evil, and there is a group that defends against the evil.

...there are men who are ancient and determined enemies of the Church of Rome who live in perpetual hope of its destruction.

The book takes us to Nero's Rome, where he has St. Peter crucified, Christians martyred, and possibly even the city burned down to allow him to build his monumental palace over the ruins

Our hero, or heroine, which is quite unique for this genre, is all that stands between good and evil.  Well, not quite.  The Italian nun has help from her uniquely helpful Italian family.  And she has help from unexpected sources along the way to the climactic ending.  The author pulls all the strands together in the end and creates a satisfying conclusion to the story.

The writing is clear and direct, with an unobtrusive omniscient narrator.   The story flows smoothly, weaving together the stories from the past and present so we understand all there is to know, in the end.  A special storyline set in Elizabethan England adds to story's uniqueness.  I would have liked line breaks between scene changes, and fewer periods in place of commas, for greater clarity, but they may be added in future editions.  There are some vulgarities, sex and nudity.

Are you interested in learning about Ancient Roman superstitions, early Christians, Roman astrology, Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, the Roman Emperor Nero, and the source of human evil?  If you are, then The Devil Will Come will keep you entertained. 

Central to the plot is a prophecy by Irish St. Malachy. Read more at Wikipedia.

From the book's description:

Elisabetta Celestino, a brilliant young archaeologist at work in Rome’s ancient catacombs, has discovered a unique pattern of astrological symbols on an underground wall. She feels sure that evidence of a previously unknown pre-Christian sect lies in an adjacent chamber where the untombed skeletons bear a strange anomaly, and is devastated when the Vatican refuses to support her excavation project.

Ten years later, a cave-in damages the vault, and a shocking discovery is made. Following a violent and traumatic event, Elisabetta has left has left archaeology behind for the serenity of prayer and teaching, but the young nun unexpectedly finds herself in a race to solve the secret of the catacomb and prevent an apocalyptic event that threatens not only the Vatican but the future of mankind.

Moving between present-day Europe, 1st-century Rome, and Elizabethan England, The Devil Will Come is an exhilarating tale of a battle between good and evil that has been fought in the shadows through the centuries and across continents—and that both sides are willing to kill to keep secret.

This book's frontispiece is key to the plot of The Devil Will Come.  The book begins with a quote from this play by Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.  Here is a clearer representation of the image. 

The Devil Will Come is published by Lescaux Media, a film group run by the author.  Please visit the author's website for his books.

Here is a direct link to The Devil Will Come at Amazon.com:

If you understand Italian, here is a brief interview with the nun who inspired Glenn Cooper's protagonist in The Devil Will Come, which in Italian is Il Marchio del Diavolo.  Cooper's books are translated into many languages, and are very popular in Italian.

The author has written other historical-conspiracy thrillers.  Here are links to them at Amazon.com:

The latest release by this author is the entertaining Holy Grail quest book The Resurrection Maker.

 Amazon.com link to the book: The Resurrection Maker

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Botticelli's Bastard by Stephen Maitland-Lewis

The novel Botticelli's Bastard is hard to categorize.  It is part farce, historical novel, paranormal novel, love story, mystery, and drama.  All the parts somehow come together to create a satisfying whole.  The whole is the story of Giovanni Fabrizzi, an Anglo-Italian art restorer living in London, who inherits a talking Italian Renaissance portrait painting.  What the man in the painting has to tell Giovanni is often disturbing.

Giovanni's behavior had changed dramatically since he had opened that crate.  He felt haunted.

The changes that the painting makes in Giovanni's life are, at first, mainly comic, with a fun jaunt through history.  But halfway through the book, the story takes a decidedly darker turn, leading to a bittersweet but satisfying ending.

On this page, I show many portraits by Sandro Botticelli.

The second half of the book deals with event that happened in Europe during the Second World War in relation to the robbing and killing of Jews.  Giovanni follows up on what the man painting tells him, and discovers upsetting things about the previous owners of the painting.

It was one thing to see the worn, black and white footage on a television program...But touching the paper, confirming the Meyerstein's transfer to Auschwitz, and knowing the gruesome manner in which the good people had perished...it put an echo of that terror into his heart and mind that would not leave him, ever, from that day forward.

Botticelli's favorite muse, Simonetta Vespucci

Wealthy Giovanni is not the most sympathetic of characters, and I found his troubles with his thirty-year-younger second-wife more icky than interesting, with a very unrealistic, or delusional, ending, in my opinion.  But the life of a first generation Anglo-Italian in London was enough to keep me reading (it was enough for me to request a review-copy).  True to his cultural upbringing, Giovanni seeks out human contact and a sense of community, as well as treats from Italy, like good food, coffee and gossipy news.

The title of the book, Botticelli's Bastard, is a description the man in the painting gives to himself.  He is a vain and arrogant minor de' Medici (annoyingly, the book spells de' Medici without the necessary contraction comma).  The man claims his portrait was painted by Sandro Botticelli during the Italian Renaissance in Florence, Italy. 

Giuliano de' Medici

Most of the humor in the story comes from the interaction between Giovanni and the man in the painting, a painting Giovanni inherited from his father.  The family connection is key to the story, and if you want to really enjoy the story, I would suggest you avoid reading the official book description, since it contains many spoilers.

The author's prose is straight-forward, clear and a pleasure to read.  The book is well-edited (except for the de' Medici error!).  The narration is third-person limited, letting us into Giovanni's head.  Botticelli's Bastard is an enjoyable mystery about a amateur detective who, with the help of the supernatural, discovers some dark secrets about his own family.  

The following book description, which comes from Amazon.com, oddly omits to mention the paranormal aspect in the novel:  the speaking portrait painting (is it just me, or does the portrait made for the book cover look like the author in Renaissance costume?). 

From the book's description (many spoilers):

Art restorer Giovanni Fabrizzi is haunted by an unsigned renaissance portrait.  Obsessed to learn the truth of its origin, he becomes increasingly convinced the painting could be the work of one of history's greatest artists, which if true, would catapult its value to the stratosphere.  

But in learning of the painting's past, he is faced with a dilemma.  He believes the portrait was stolen during the greatest art heist in history -- the Nazi plunder of European artwork.  If true and a surviving relative of the painting's rightful owner were still alive, Giovanni, in all good conscience, would have to give up the potential masterpiece.

His obsession with the portrait puts a strain on his new marriage, and his son thinks his father has lost his mind for believing an unremarkable, unsigned painting could be worth anyone's attention.  Regardless, Giovanni persists in his quest of discovery and exposes far more truth than he ever wanted to know.

A portrait of Botticelli's brother, a goldsmith, the man who probably made the medallion of Cosino de' Medici that he is holding.  Notice the cleft in the chin?  It is a Botticelli family trait (and a Lippi one which has caused some to suggest Sandro and perhaps his brother were illegitimate children of the randy priest, Fra Filippo Lippi).

Botticelli's Bastard is published by Glyd-Evans Press.

Direct link to the book at GEP

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com:

 

Please visit the book's Twitter and Facebook pages.

Here are some links to books about the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli at Amazon.com:

Here is an interview with the author about Botticelli's Bastard at YouTube:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Split Symmetry (Borderliners Trilogy) by Kirsten Arcadio

An Anglo-Italian, Elena Lewis, is the protagonist of the sci-fi-thriller The Borderliners Trilogy.  Split Symmetry is the second book in the 3-book series.  It is set in Italy on Gran Sasso, the mountain peak that rises above the Apennines mountain range.  Thriller, adventure, a bit of romance and lots of science with a bit of fantasy thrown in for fun, makes Split Symmetry an entertaining read.

We begin with our protagonist, 32-year-old Elena Lewis, an Anglo-Italian psychotherapist, who is in Italy's Abruzzo region.  We quickly get the fist mention of the "split spectrum" which is at the very center of the Gran Sasso mountain range, where Elena and her hiking-for-charity group are heading.  We are informed that particle physicists have a laboratory under the mountain range's largest peak.  The stage is set, and there is a clear feeling of dread.

Elena is a complex character, introduced in the first book in the series, Borderliners.  We get a quick summary of her previous adventure, and a mention of Elena's ability to see into the future, and possibly to summon up spirits from the past.  Elena is described as "a Marmite person", someone people either love or hate, just like the yeasty British spread, Marmite.  She is strong, controlled, reticent, professional, and seemingly cold to people who don't know her.

The story follows the hikers on the mountain, and the scientists under the mountain in the National Laboratories.  The Italian scientists pride themselves on their very-Italian "unconventional methods and original thinking".  They are hoping for a ground-breaking discovery that day, having to do with fluctuations in time.  There are also hints that their experiments may have caused some recent earthquakes along the two fault lines that run near them.  More interesting stage-setting!

 

 

The entrance to the Gran Sasso laboratories.  Yes, they do exist!

The author moves us between the perspectives of a small group of characters to tell the story, which takes place all in one day.  This is an effective way of letting us inside the heads of key characters, and of giving us a front row seat as the two storylines intersect, twisting reality.  We are allowed to see how the odd events on the mountain are a trigger for the characters to reflect on their pasts.

Here is Elena contemplating the oddities the hikers find on the mountain:

It was as if she were looking across timelines through distorted mirrors to versions of herself which weren't there.  Just like life, reality shifted and twisted out of her grasp, as if to show her how little she knew and how small she was.  Mother nature was laughing at her.

The descriptions are very cinematic, bringing to the mind's eye images of the mountain, the quickly changing weather, the glimpses of climbers, the landslides.  The adventure is greater than a mountain-climbing adventure, which is exciting in its own right.  There are the earthquakes, the odd weather patterns, and the ripples in time for the climbers to deal with.   

Little wonder that they sometimes look for reasons for their suffering, wondering if fate really exists, and questioning why they have to suffer.  Elena has another element to struggle with:  her visions of the future.  She must continually question the odd things she sees, trying to determine if they are in the here and now.  She deals daily with ripples in time.

The author's prose is very descriptive, and explains not just the actions and events, but much more.  Like this quote as the hikers are struggling against a storm in the night:

...the wind threw them down and rolled them across the ground like rag dolls.  They were like the hollow men, no longer meaningful in this strange, new world; their souls, so definite and defined only moments before, now ripped to shreds and cast away into the gusting wind.

The author calls her book "a metaphysical thriller", which is a good description, but I call the book an "adventure".  Even if you took away all the sci-fi and paranormal elements, the adventure story would still make a very entertaining book.  It is well-written and well-edited, with a striking cover.  Indie publishing at its best!

If you enjoy programs like The Twilight Zone, Lost, X-Files, and Stephen King novels, you should enjoy this novel.  It is moody, atmospheric, and full of scary situations and trippy science such as "the wilder possibilities of quantum mechanics".  It is a thrilling adventure with science and fiction combined expertly to create a cinematic mind-bender.  I enjoyed it!

The books in The Borderliners Trilogy:

1. Borderliners
2. Split Symmetry
3. WorldCult

This short video zooms in on hikers on Gran Sasso in the most unbelievable locations.  The moody music makes it feel like a trailer for Split Symmetry:

From the book's description:

Every decision, every step of the way...changes reality

It's 2015 in the notorious Gran Sasso mountain range of central Italy.
Quantum physicists in a lab beneath the ground begin an illegal experiment. 
A landslide hits and a hiking group is stranded.

When Dr Elena Lewis takes a group of friends on a charity hike in the Italian Apennine mountains the presence on the trip of her estranged patient, James, unsettles her from the start. But as the hike progresses and the weather closes in, she finds this is only the beginning of her problems.

Book #2 of the best-selling Borderliners series, this other-worldly adventure which will keep you turning the pages to the very end!

Here is the description of first book in the series, Borderliners:

A girl is found dead in a notorious New Age shop on the edge of the woods.
A Tarot card reading and a dream diary contain hidden warnings.
A man is watching from the shadows of his room.

When she moves to a village in the English heartland to set up a new psychotherapy practice, Dr Elena Lewis notices strange patterns of behaviour among the villagers. After a young woman is found dead, Elena is left in possession of a diary. What she reads there leads her to the door of her Julia, the leader of a group known locally as the Charismatic Community.

As she investigates further, Elena meets a curious visitor to the village. He has a message for her, but in order to decipher it, she look beneath the surface and trust in her abilities to see what others cannot.

In this page-turning thriller, Elena Lewis is thrown into a fight with unknown forces which bring her face to face with her deepest fears.

Here are direct links to the series books at Amazon.com, including the 3-book e-bundle:

Visit the author's website or join her on Twitter, Facebook, Google +. Check out Kirsten Arcadio’s blog.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

Do you enjoy the sketches and films of the British comedy troupe Monty Python?  Can you appreciate Shakespeare's plays?  Are you an Anglophile as well as an Italophile?  If you answered "Yes!" to all three of those questions, then you should enjoy reading The Serpent of Venice.

In a faux British and or Elizabethan English writer Christopher Moore follows his comic creation, Pocket the King's Fool from the novel Fool, through his next adventure in his storied life.  Surrounded by settings, characters, and storylines from Shakespeare's plays and one Edgar Allan Poe short story, Pocket jokes his way through Medieval Venice, Italy (1299), Venetian Corsica, and Genoa in The Serpent of Venice.  The chapters often read like scripts for Monty Python sketches.  I even found myself imagining the female characters as men in drag with screechy falsetto voices.

At the end of Fool, Pocket marries Cordelia, the late King Lear's daughter, making Pocket consort to the Queen of Britain and France.  In The Serpent of Venice, which I received from the publisher in exchange for a review, Pocket goes to Venice on a very un-diplomatic mission for his wife. 

Just like Fool, The Serpent of Venice is presented as a play, with The Cast (list of principle characters), The Stage (setting), Five Acts (sections), and numbered chapters as the Scenes within the Acts.  In true Shakespearean style, an opening Invocation by a Chorus calls upon a Muse to inspire the author.

I don't wish to give away too much of the plot here, but if you read the book's description provided by the publisher, reproduced below, you get the gist of the first scenes of the book.  But is it a book you will enjoy?  Well, ask yourself those three questions above, again, and keep reading here to find out.

The author alters the narrative voice at times to let us get inside his characters' minds, especially Pocket's complex mind.  Here is Pocket recalling a conversation with his wife in which Pocket suggests his form of diplomacy and his desire to sire:

"I adore you, including and especially your specific lady bits, but I respect the awesome twattiness with which you wield dominion over the realm.  No, I say send them another pound of royal seals and wax, with a resounding 'Fuck off' to the pope, in Latin.  Signed Queen Cordelia, Britain, France, et ceterea, et cetera, and after lunch I can try to impregnate you with the royal heir."

"No," she said, her delicate jaw quite set.

"Well, fine then," said I.  "We'll send the letter, skip lunch, and go right to siring the heir.  I'm feeling full of tiny princes, bustling to get out into the world and start plotting against one another."  I thrust my cod at her to show the palpable urgency of our progeny.

The dialog is full of period puns, and period and up-to-date vulgarity, as well as self-referential jokes.  The dialog has a formality that reminded me of those 1930s-1940s historical Hollywood films, and I even found myself picturing Danny Kaye as Pocket, albeit with a more vulgar tongue than old Hollywood would have allowed the comic.  Like Danny Kaye, Pocket has the same, unexpected, propensity for pathos.

I thought the humor was best between the characters of Pocket and the Moor.  And I liked the insightful descriptions, such as this one concerning the young woman Portia and her hand-maiden:

Waiting upon the lady was her maid Nerissa, a raven-haired beauty half again as clever as her mistress, and as good a friend as money could buy.  The two had been together since they were little girls, and so loved and hated each other like sisters.

Events are not described chronologically, the language can be mindbogglingly vulgar, and the humor can wear thin after a while, since it is generally more difficult to appreciate this kind of humor reading it, as opposed to watching it performed.  Those are the three reasons I found it best to read The Serpent of Venice in small doses.  That kept the humor fresh, but it did make it difficult to follow the plot.

I found the self-referential humor most reminiscent of Monty Python's sketches and films.  For example, here is an exchange between Jessica, daughter of Shylock, and Pocket after he tells her father than his name is Lancelot.

Jessica whirled on me and whispered furiously, "Lancelot?"  Where did you get bloody Lancelot?"

"I thought it would explain away my English accent."

"We all have English accents, you knob."

"I know," said I.  "And in a Italian city.  Don't you find that strange?"

There is also violence in novel, coming mainly from the creature in the Lagoon that is The Serpent of Venice.  Vicious death comes to many in the book, and salvation to others.  If filmed, the book would be more of a comic horror movie inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, than a historical comedy.  Reading about the gore is less upsetting than seeing it, however, so if you dislike horror stories, you might still like The Serpent of Venice.  There is a nice twist late in the novel as a famous Venetian makes an appearance and is linked to the serpent.

If you are up to American-Monty-Python-does-Shakespeare-in-Venice then you are ready for The Serpent of Venice.  Take it in small doses, and enjoy the author's invention, his facility with language, and especially his facility with vulgarisms.  If you try to picture it performed while you read, you will enjoy it more, since reading The Serpent of Venice is much like reading a Shakespearean farce, or the screenplay for Monty Python's Life of Brian; they pale compared to the performance of the text.

From the book's description:

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore channels William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe in this satiric Venetian gothic that brings back the Pocket of Dog Snogging, the eponymous hero of Fool, along with his sidekick, Drool, and pet monkey, Jeff.

Venice, a long time ago. Three prominent Venetians await their most loathsome and foul dinner guest, the erstwhile envoy of Britain and France, and widower of the murdered Queen Cordelia: the rascal-Fool Pocket.

This trio of cunning plotters-the merchant, Antonio; the senator, Montressor Brabantio; and the naval officer, Iago-have lured Pocket to a dark dungeon, promising an evening of sprits and debauchery with a rare Amontillado sherry and Brabantio's beautiful daughter, Portia.

But their invitation is, of course, bogus. The wine is drugged. The girl isn't even in the city limits. Desperate to rid themselves once and for all of the man who has consistently foiled their grand quest for power and wealth, they have lured him to his death. (How can such a small man, be such a huge obstacle?). But this Fool is no fool . . . and he's got more than a few tricks (and hand gestures) up his sleeve.

Note:  The book, too, is a veritable work of art. Rich creamy stock is enhanced by two-color printing, featuring part/chapter titles, running heads, and folios printed in red ink. The text block has blue-stained edges. The book opens to reveal two-page spread endpapers decorated with a sepia-toned antique map of Venice; an antique map of Italy graces the book’s front matter, printed in red. The jacket sports a matte finish with embossed author and title type; gold foil embellishes the title and illustration detail.

Here is a 3 minute interview with the author about the previous book featuring Pocket, Fool:

This is a link to the full interview.

Here is a link to The Serpent of Venice at Amazon.com:

If you enjoy Christopher Moore's style, you might like some of his other books.  Here are direct links to some of his books at Amazon.com:

 

Visit with the author via his:

• Official Author Website
• Official Author Facebook
• Official Author Twitter: @theauthorguy

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.