From Publishers Weekly
It's late 1945 at the start of this atmospheric historical thriller, and G.I. Adam Miller, officially assigned to ferret out Nazi war criminals in Germany, joins his widowed mother, Grace, who has recently arrived in Venice from New York to resume her life as a wealthy American expatriate. Together, they flow into the social eddies of the upper class, determined to pick up where they left off in 1939. Grace has met an old flame, Gianni Maglione, a distinguished doctor whom Adam suspects of gold-digging. Meanwhile, Adam himself meets Jewish Claudia Grassini, who survived the Nazi pogroms by becoming the mistress of a powerful Italian Fascist. The novel's languid pace picks up when Claudia meets Maglione, whom she accuses not only of being a Nazi collaborator but also of having condemned her own father to Auschwitz. Further complications arise with the appearance of Rosa, an Italian operative and former partisan. Kanon (The Good German, etc.) keeps his complex plot—involving murder, elaborate alibis, false accusations and a web of secrets spinning back to the war—on track, although the various entanglements aren't always neatly unraveled. Adam and Claudia's love affair provides the requisite romance, but there's no sense that they find much to like in one another. More interesting is Kanon's portrait of a pathetic and hopelessly naïve group of wealthy people out of touch with the postwar world's reality. Agent, Amanda Urban. Author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile
Adam Miller, a war crimes investigator, is drawn into romance, murder, and political cover-ups amid the streets and canals of post-WWII Venice. Kanon gives great attention to historical details, but listeners may find it hard to identify with Miller, his girlfriend, and his moral dilemma. Some of this problem could have been avoided if the audiobook hadn't relied so much on explanatory dialogue among the characters--a stylistic (or abridgment) choice that causes the story to lose momentum. Holter Graham admirably voices Miller's world-weariness and delivers reliable accents, as well. But even quality acting can't put the thrill into this thriller. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
