Death in a Serene City Book Reviews

Death in a Serene City by Edward Sklepowich Book Summary

An American writer searches for a kidnapped Venetian saint

In a remote Venice church, a dead woman named Santa Teodora lies before the altar. She has been there for centuries, ever since the Crusaders carried her mummified body away from the Holy Land, and she is as much a part of this mysterious city as the Grand Canal itself. Urbino Macintyre, an American expatriate who makes a living writing biographies of legendary Venetians, believes he knows every detail of Teodora’s legend, but another chapter is about to be added to her myth.
 
Twenty years after a flood ravaged the city, Santa Teodora has vanished from the church. Macintyre’s nose for history leads him to investigate the case, which he suspects might be related to the demises of two local women. Death can no longer touch the saint, but it may be waiting for Urbino Macintyre.

“The atmosphere . . . rises thicker than the predawn fog that rolls off the Grand Canal.” —The New York Times
 
“Distinguished by fully dimensioned characters and plentiful local color.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Subdued and quietly refined.” —Library Journal

Edward Sklepowich (b. 1943) is an American author of mysteries. Raised in Connecticut, he grew up living with his parents and his grandparents, who immersed him in Italian culture and Neapolitan dialect from a young age. A Fulbright scholarship took him to Europe and Africa, and he has made his home across the Mediterranean, living in Venice, Naples, Egypt, and Tunisia. Deeply connected to his Italian heritage, Sklepowich has used the country as the setting for all of his fiction.
 
Sklepowich’s debut novel, Death in a Serene City (1990), introduced Urbino Macintyre, an American expatriate and amateur sleuth who undertakes to solve a Venetian murder. Sklepowich treats Venice as a character, using its ancient atmosphere to shape his classically structured mysteries. He has written eight more Mysteries of Venice—most recently, The Veils of Venice (2009). 

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