Since reading Orient a few years ago, I’ve kept Christopher Bollen on my radar. His narrative style is oblique, but highly personal and particular. He goes into detail, but not enough for it to become repetitive and boring. The opening scene in this novel is quite effective - it’s a short con that’s really a test to see if Nick can pull off the long one. It’s a little nail-biter once we come to the end, but it’s a thing of beauty as far as cons go. I know we should all deplore them as terrible cheats and liars, but successful con artists have a strange place in the human heart. We want to believe that their victims deserved it somehow; that they walked into the trap or fell for the most blatant lies when we know that we would probably do the same. I think we also want to reward such brazenness because it’s so skillful and something 90% of us just couldn’t imagine doing or be good at if we tried. So that’s our set-up, Nick and Clay are here to deprive some poor fool of his money.

But not so fast. Is our victim really deserving? It takes a while to get to that part, but when it comes, I wasn’t convinced and thought Clay was being a bit of a jerk and certainly childish. And given that we don’t see the relationship much from Richard West’s POV it’s hard to say his treatment of Clay was so vicious. We also don’t get to see far into Clay’s relationship with van der Haar and whether he wormed his way into the old Queen’s heart just to game an inheritance. He is masterminding the long con on West so it’s likely, but unproven. Overall Nick comes across as more sympathetic than does Clay, although he seems a natural swindler more than Clay.

Venice itself stands out as a character and one that’s being slowly strangled. A sub-current in the story is that of Venice itself and how it’s relentlessly turning into Disneyland. There are fewer and fewer actual residents of the city because no one can afford to say, be a dentist or run a dry-cleaner because so many of the city dwellers have left because of the tourist onslaught. It’s a vicious cycle - how can you live anywhere without grocery stores or veterinarians? How can you stand the taxes and the crowding and the noise? So many people turned their homes into B&Bs or vacation rentals and left for the mainland. Anyone hanging on has to put up with too many people and too few services. In the book the latest Mayor is blamed as a corrupt politician (redundant I know) who uses bribery as a way to bulldoze and raze homes and businesses and build hotels and mask shops.

It ends sort of oddly. Nick has to run on the heels of a violent fight with West and the resulting probable charges of attempted murder. The plot to sell the toothpick pallazzo Il Domitorio fell through because West saw Clay didn’t have clear title to it and set a trap to get both of them on fraud. Because West’s assistant saw he was being used and got really mad, he went ahead to warn Clay that he shouldn’t show up for the sale meeting. Since he actually didn’t go through with it, Clay gets to hang onto his half-ownership out of prison. Eventually he catches up with Nick who is on the remotest island you can be on and still be in Italy. Will they live happily ever after? Most likely not, but it's a nice dream. I was always worried that Nick would end up with the short end of the stick and was happy when he asked Clay how exactly Nick would benefit financially if absolutely everything was in Clay's name. This goes for the silver and the house. Clay never offers to open a Swiss Bank Account for Nick, so I don't think he ever intended to share and I think Nick knows that now. But they're basically all the other has and so...

Bollen writes that Clay’s role as an intern at the Guggenheim in Venice is based on his own experience being one. His love of the museum, the city and his time there is palpable and enviable. I’m not sure Venice can live up to its past so it’s nice to have it encapsulated here.

Some terrific writing -
“As a teenager, Nick feared he would eventually become something like his quietly miserable father, fixing radios in a Dayton basement. Then Nick feared he would turn into a version of his unhappy, Ohio-trapped sister. In New York, he worried he’d end up whispered about like this young man for his behavior around older men. Nick’s entire biography could be summed up by the people he feared he’d become.” p 36

“Like most zillionaires, West didn’t want to be remembered for how he’d earned his money but for how he spent it. Many lives might have been ruined in the amassing of his wealth, but now he was bent on uplifting lives by means of culture and taste.” p 134 ( )

Very slow-paced book, set in NYC and Venice. ( )

This is an intelligent, well-written and well-paced thriller. It is the story of two young gay men from New York City, one black the other white, with most of the action set in Venice. The author's Epilogue explains how he achieved verisimilitude in describing the art world and the expat world in Venice, as well as in depicting the city's confusing streets, plazas and bridges.

The young men both come from relationships with older men, one romantic, the other more care giving. Antique silver brings the two young men together, one a seller the other an expert/appraiser. The older men are gone, and the two become lovers and then schemers.

Page one is a tantalizing Prologue describing a killed man " . . . (lying) crumpled and bleeding. He's been dead for only a few seconds. . . . The killer is making a run for the exit." Who is the dead man? Who is the killer? These questions are with us until very near the end of the book.

In fact, the book has two murders and one attempted murder. Brilliantly, the author places moral deficiencies more on the victims than the perpetrators. The reader works to sort that out. The two young men live happily ever after - or do they? A great read. ( )

I read this book as an electronic advance reading copy provided by Edelweiss, and I have submitted my comments to the publisher via that web site.

The city of Venice is the most interesting character in this overlong thriller that is low on thrills, barring a mildly entertaining twist near the end that almost redeems the unchallenging "villain" of the novel. "How can you live in an unreal city?" asks one of its last citizens. That tension between residents and tourists proves more compelling than the convoluted scam that the "heroes" attempt. Not recommended, except as a commentary on modern Venice. ( )