Venetian Vespers

A gem of period crime crossed with gothic horror.

Has the unmistakable touch of a master’s hand. There are nods to Henry James and Thomas Mann in this ever-darkening fin de siècle tale of a self-centred English writer and his new American bride in a city as malevolent as it is mesmerizing [...] utterly absorbing: absurd, surreal and increasingly sinister. Banville fuses the intricate prose style familiar from his high art novels with the suspense and intrigue of his Benjamin Black crime stories. The result is a wonderfully unsettling conjunction of beauty and terror, wickedly ironic humour and not-so-cheap thrills.

The novel bristles with dramatic fodder: family tensions, a vast fortune, a devastatingly lovely expat accompanied by her insistently charming brother. But what emerges from the dark shadows of the plot is an even darker psychological portrait of a man forced to grapple with his inner demons.

Banville had previously hinted that 2022’s The Singularities would be his last literary work, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn of Venetian Vespers’ publication. This evocative novel is set in bleak midwinter in Venice in 1900, as the (highly unlikable) novelist Evelyn Dolman honeymoons in the damp, misty Italian city with his aloof American heiress wife. It is an eerie ghost story, a love story and a mystery all wrapped up in one atmospheric package - and told as only Banville could.

A ripping yarn filled with dark desire, melodrama and suspense . . . an arch entertainment elevated by a master stylist’s elegant prose. Venetian Vespers [is] plotted so perfectly that it leaves a cleanly satisfying shape in the mind when it’s over . . . An intricate thriller that is also a slyly fashioned work of art; a pastiche that is also indisputably the real thing. John Banville, up to his old tricks.

Venice in winter is the murky backdrop to the acclaimed novelist’s story of avarice, subterfuge and a disturbing disappearance . . . Venetian Vespers pulls off its own particular tricks with devilish aplomb.