The Veils of Venice
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Investigating a killing, Macintyre finds it to be a family affair
As snow falls on Venice, turning the city into an elaborate gothic confection, Gaby Pindar fears for her life. Crippled by intense agoraphobia, she hasn’t left her family home in two decades, instead dedicating herself to tending to the small collection of historical trinkets that make up the family museum. When she begins receiving death threats, she begs for help from her cousin, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, whose friend Urbino Macintyre is something of an amateur sleuth. But the search takes a gruesome turn when Gaby’s sister, Olimpia, turns up dead.
The contessa finds Olimpia murdered in her home, the maid kneeling above her with a bloody pair of scissors. Convinced of the maid’s innocence, Macintyre digs into the Pindar family history, discovering centuries’ worth of intrigue that have finally erupted in blood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Sklepowich's well-paced ninth Venetian mystery (after 2008's Frail Barrier), literary biographer Urbino Macintyre, who's assisting his friend Contessa Barbara with an exhibit devoted to fabric designer Mariano Fortuny, visits the Palazzo Pindar, the home of Barbara's eccentric cousins. The palace houses a museum, including letters from Fortuny to the Pindars. Urbino turns sleuth after the contessa finds one of her cousins, Olimpia, dead at Palazzo Pindar with stab wounds in her chest. Kneeling next to the body is Mina, Barbara's personal maid, holding a bloody pair of scissors and crying, "I killed her! I killed her!" Convinced Mina is innocent, Urbino investigates all the members of the Pindar family, a goodly number of suspects, in an effort to unmask Olimpia's true killer. Sklepowich dramatically juxtaposes the splendor of Venice against the dark deed of murder.
