Venetian Vespers

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW ''A marvellous and rewarding novelist . . He is a magician, really. '' THE SCOTSMAN "˜Banville has a grim gift of seeing people"™s souls. "™ DON DeLILLO "˜The most eminent innovator in Irish fiction of the last 50 years. "™ IRISH TIMES "˜One of my favourite writers alive. "™ REBECCA F. KUANG "˜Banville writes prose of such luscious elegance. "™ NEW YORK TIMES Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. 1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn"™s plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt. As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice at Palazzo Dioscuri - the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo - a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn"™s already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?