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About Face
About Face
Oct 22, 2024 7:47 AM

Author:Donna Leon,David Colacci

About Face

At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Commissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He's charmed - perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola - by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance.

A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from the nearby city of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants information about the owner of a trucking company who was found murdered in his office. He believes the man's death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse - and more sinister material - in his company's trucks. No stranger to mutual suspicion and competition between rival Italian police departments, Brunetti is nevertheless puzzled by the younger man's paranoid behaviour.

Eventually Guarino agrees to email a photo of his suspect, but by the time the photograph arrives, he himself is dead. Was he killed because he got too close? And why is it that Franca Marinello has often been seen in company of the suspect, a vulgar man with Mafia connections and a violent past?

Donna Leon's new novel is as subtle, gripping and topical as ever, bringing the sights, sounds and smells of Venice flooding to life.

Reviews

[A] brilliant series

—— Seven, Sunday Telegraph

Super sleuth Brunetti again patrols Venice's dark canal ways in this Italian crimefest. Once again, Brunetti proves he's more than a match for the local mob

—— Mirror

The very first sentences of About Face showcase Donna Leon's elegant, effortless style ... another great Brunetti outing. [Leon] combines the minutiae of daily life in Venice with pitch-perfect descriptions of police procedure, the now-familiar rhythms of Brunetti's home life with a ferocious knowledge of literature, delivered - how else? - with a sure, yet light, touch ... The details of home-cooked meals and family arguments, alongside a never-ending flow of crime, add depth to Leon's stories and are what makes her characters so believable and, in turn, her books so readable

—— Independent

A thoroughly enjoyable and atmospheric read

—— Waterstones Books Quarterly

The Brunetti series is dependably enjoyable ... There are fine scenes of sustained dialogue, notably an exchange between Brunetti and the Count, his father-in-law, over a pair of portraits, that deserves to be called Jamesian

—— TLS

The plotting in this intelligent thriller is exceptionally good. Goddard's greatest strength is his ability to operate like a literary conjurer; we know he will give us a twist or surprise in almost every chapter, but time and time again he hits us with it from an unexpected direction

—— Spectator

Admirers of Goddard will know that they are in safe hands, as ever

—— Good Book Guide

It is certainly well worth unplugging the phone and immersing yourself in another Goddard adventure

—— Crimesquad.com

A meticulously plotted tale of intrigue with his characteristic combination of contemporary invention and accurate historical detail

—— Literary Review

Excellent... anyone who enjoys mystery, edge of the seat suspense and a good plot should read this

—— New Books

Combines the expert suspense manipulation skills of a Daphne du Maurier romance with those of a John Le Carre thriller

—— The New York Times

A real page turner, full of surprises to the very end

—— Woman's Weekly

An intriguing plot, clever twists, surprise elements, believable characters and unexplained history explored... A real page-turner

—— Choice

One of Britain's finest thriller writers

—— Time Out

This guy can write.

—— James Ellroy

Neville has the talent to believably blend the tropes of the crime novel and those of a horror, in the process creating a page-turning thriller akin to a collaboration between John Connolly and Stephen King...

—— The Sunday Independent

A brilliant thriller: unbearably tense, stomach-churningly frightening.

—— The Observer

A no-frills thriller that barrels along at a ferocious pace, pausing only to offer the occasional nod to 1970s paranoid classics such as William Goldman's Marathon Man.

—— Declan Burke , Irish Times

Stuart Neville's third novel effortlessly exceeds the high expectations created by the first two installments... Stuart Neville's latest novel is a thrilling masterpiece. From its gripping and well paced plot to its well defined and intriguing characters, Stolen Souls is a powerful novel, which does not shy away from exploring the new literary landscape for Northern Irish fiction.

—— Kellie Chambers , Ulster Tatler

With echoes of The Thomas Crown Affair, spectacular storytelling and a beautifully judged super-twist, it confirms Nesbo's place at the pinnacle of thriller writers and, inevitably, a film version will be with us next year. It's that good.

—— Geoffrey Wansell , Daily Mail

Harris is a master of pace an entertainment, and The Fear Index is a thoroughly enjoyable book . . . Read the book. If I die tomorrow, blame the computer.

—— Observer

Like all Harris's books, this one is readily enjoyable as a suspense story . . . But what makes Harris's thrillers so much more rewarding than those of his rivals is that they all, whatever their ostensible subject, come out of his deep and expert interest in politics, broadly conceived - which is to say, in power, in how power is taken, held and lost; how some people are able to dominate others; how wealth and status, fear and greed, work . . .The Fear Index (which has a lot to say about the very rich - a group to which Harris himself now belongs but doesn't like) is ultimately a study in the total lack of morality of those who manipulate the markets . . . By focusing thus on a rogue algorithm and a pure scientist, Harris is not really fronting up the true authors of our current financial plight, perhaps. But, in its own carefully conceived terms, The Fear Index is certainly another winner.

—— Evening Standard

This latest nail-biter from the author of The Ghost will keep fans of suspense up all night.

—— Good Housekeeping

To crawl by bus through rush-hour traffic is not something that would normally appeal to a busy person. Unless, like me, that person was in possession of Robert Harris's new thriller The Fear Index. Then they would certainly relish the potential for escapism such a slow journey could provide and there was nowhere else I wanted to be then in that story, which delivers pure pleasure with every page.

—— The Lady

Harris is a master of pace and entertainment, and The Fear Index is a thoroughly enjoyable book . . . Read the book.

—— Observer

The Fear Index is an escapist thriller to rank with the best of them, and as a guide to what hedge funds actually do, it is surprisingly clear and instructive.

—— Economist

There are moments when this book feels so up to date it could have been written next week... spookily exciting.

—— Express

Perhaps the greatest thriller writer around, Harris has delivered his best work yet. A modern classic.

—— Irish Examiner

Mock-gothic variant on Frankenstein relates what happens when a computer programme goes rogue and ravages the money market. Suspense and satire combine in a book that is as up to the minute as a news flash.

—— Sunday Times

If you didn’t catch it in hardback, grab it now in austerity-Britain paperback. Harris’s latest bestseller is a gripping, funny and timely tale of money – losing it or, more terrifyingly here, making too much of it… A high-speed plot, deft characterisation… and Harris even manages to explain what a hedge fund is.

—— The Lady

Populist fiction at its best.

—— Spectator

I would recommend The Fear Index. The writing is as elegant as ever.

—— Lionel Barber , Financial Times

Harris writes with a deceptively languid elegance, so that the novel straddles not only the crime and sci-fi genres but also that of literary fiction. A satisfying read on a number of levels, it is strongest as a character study of a man who discovers, pace Hemingway, the true meaning of the phrase "grace under pressure".

—— Irish Times

The Fear Index is a frightening book, of course, as, with its title, it intends. Harris has an excellent sense of pace, and understands as much about fear in literature as Hoffman does in markets.

—— Telegraph

Like Frankenstein, his novel is a tale of the catastrophic consequences of galvanising inanimate matter into uncontrollable life . . . The Fear Index is both cutting edge and keenly conscious of its literary predecessors. Reworking classic texts is a large-scale literary industry these days. Harris's tongue-in-cheek flesh-creeper (whose most chilling moments are its reminders of our present financial woes) is a virtuoso specimen of it.

—— Sunday Times

Harris is a master of pace and entertainment, and The Fear Index is a thoroughly enjoyable book . . . Read the book. If I die tomorrow, blame the computer.

—— Observer

A nail-biting listen - the financial world has never seemed so thrilling - beautifully read by Phillip Franks

—— Kati Nicholl , Daily Express

There is a cool edge to Franks' voice as he tracks Alex's surging paranoia to a blockbuster climax

—— Daily Telegraph
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