VENICE-O-METER 8
Crime novel set in Venice
I admire Zadie Smith mostly as a voracious, omnivorous reader, and often find our favorites overlap. In a feature in The Guardian, she listed Christopher Bollen as a master of the murder novel — that was all the recommendation I needed, especially when I discovered one of his books was set in Venice.
Like Smith, I very much enjoyed this book. It kept me engaged — I never expected to learn so much about antique silver and to have fun learning it, too. A crime novel has to be satisfying, especially in terms of the denouement, and this one certainly one.
But wait, there’s more. I really dislike it when authors give the setting a prominent part all while playing up the postcard-perfect nostalgic features, with characters straight out of central casting. You know, novels set in Paris that feature the Eiffel Tower on the cover and in which everyone lives in a Amélie fantasy — like the city hasn’t changed since Hemingway. So I was won over by Christopher Bollen’s treatment of Venice. He tackles over-tourism and the city’s housing crisis, rather than having his characters cooing away on a gondola, gelato in hand. He tackles LGBT issues, which Italy’s current (2024) far-right government is highlighting in in nasty ways.
All this feels naturally woven into the plot and the characters’ backstories.
So here’s to more novelists who use cities not just as a picturesque setting that will send you booking your next getaway.
Reading Venice 