That the canals in Venice may not always be ambrosial is the least of Evelyn Dolman's concerns in Venetian Vespers, a novel by John Banville (The Singularities) that is part thriller, part ghost story, and a satisfyingly ruthless chess match. Englishman Evelyn calls himself a "man of letters" who "had a middling reputation in the period coming to be known, in our increasingly Frenchified age, as the fin de siècle, that is, the 1890s." His modest goal was "to be a lord of language who in time would be placed among the immortals." Instead, he's "a Grub Street hack" who writes travel guides. Then he meets American heiress Laura Rensselaer, daughter of an oil magnate who dies shortly after their marriage. That's when Evelyn learns that Laura has been disinherited. To ease the pain, she suggests a belated honeymoon in Venice.
Evelyn is in for more surprises in this ingeniously constructed work. First, he and Laura have sex exactly once before marriage, when he discovers that Laura is "far more experienced than I." Then, after they've settled into their Venice palazzo, he meets Freddie FitzHerbert, who claims to recognize Evelyn from their public-school days, and Freddie's sister, Francesca, with whom Evelyn falls "instantly, irresistibly" in love. A drunk, frustrated Evelyn sexually assaults Laura, only to find the next morning that Laura has disappeared. The plot gets more intricate and unpredictable as it rushes toward its clever ending. Mix refined prose with sordid machinations, and the result is bound to be tempting, as is the case with this marvelous novel. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer