Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: Venice

  • Murder in Venice

    Murder in Venice

    Dan Armstrong and Oscar of The Armstrong and Oscar series beloved of Cozy crime thriller readers are back in their latest adventure this time set in Venice, a City on Dan’s list of places still to visit in Murder in Venice.

     After a relatively straight forward investigation finishes Dan receives a phone call from Selena Gardener, a famous Hollywood icon, a woman he had help two years previously when he had collaborated with the local police to catch a delusion man out to kill her.

    She is asking him to go to Venice to assist her long-time friend, another well-known, world-famous actress Alice Graceland, stage a Murder Mystery party on her private island Isola dei Cigni known or the Swan’s Nest, just near the Lido.

    Dan accepts the assignment, agreeing to take Oscar with him but not everything goes as planned. Alice Graceland has created the event to even the score against people in the industry who have tried to destroy or damage her career over the years.  

    She is writing her memoir, which it is a tell all which for most of the invited guests could spell the end of their career. She explains to Dan why she is hosting the party and while he considers it risky, feels that it should be safe enough, that is until it is not, and murder is committed; for real.

    Any one of the guests could be the suspect, along with Mary Stevenson, Alice’s PA who seems to have no real purpose other than to help wherever and whenever needed.

    As Dan, aided by Oscar, help the local Police led by Guilia Trevisan sift through the wreckage of a weekend event that has turned dark and terrifying, a further intrigue becomes apparent involving Mary Stevenson and Alice Graceland.

    Once again TA Williams has created an intriguing crime with Murder in Venice where any one of the guests are capable of murder with a plot line designed to tantalise the detective in us all.

    Recommended reading for a lazy Sunday afternoon at home on the couch.

  • A Death in Venice

    A Death in Venice

    A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 17

    Lady Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Swift is taking a holiday in Europe arriving in Venice at Carnival time; she has not only bought along Gladstone and Tompkins but the entire staff, overseen by the absolutely loyal and almost unshakable Clifford. Hugh, due to the pressure of work, has remained in England.

    Ellie is finding Venice amazing, overwhelming and charming, but when she accidently bumps into a young lady, sending her handbag flying, the contents strewn over the cobbled paving, she is mortified.

    Helping pick up the contents she chats with the young woman who replies in a very enigmatic style, before quietly disappearing in the crowd, but just before she completely vanishes, Ellie realises there is an item left behind, that of a beautifully crafted Venetian glass heart.

    And so begins the latest and to date most intriguing adventure to involve Ellie and Clifford, as they discover in the most horrific way possible, that Eleanor has landed herself in a decades long feud between two powerful families, with someone out to destroy the fragile truce, or anyone and anything that gets in their way.

    A Gondola ride later that day sees Ellie and Clifford witness to very disturbing incident on the canal resulting in the death of a City official, also a member of one of the families. When her hotel room is ransacked, with nothing taken, a second murder occurs, that of the Gondolier ferrying the murdered man, Ellie’s instinct for solving mysteries sees her begins to wonder what is really going on.

    Verity Bright has captured the magic of Venice, the myriad of winding canals and narrow lanes that make up the City, the centuries old beauty of the buildings and the immense pride the Venetian’s have in their City built on nothing but timber piles, in the fast pace murder mystery, A Death In Venice that pushes both Ellie and Clifford into territory never faced before, as they struggle to survive against a killer who really means business.

    A Death In Venice would have to be considered as the best yet from Verity Bright. What will Lady Eleanor Swift and the indomitable Clifford get up to next. I for one can’t wait to find out!