Alibi [Broché]

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. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

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 --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

In The Good German (2001), Kanon superbly evoked the post-apocalyptic, pockmarked moonscape of 1946 Germany. Now he turns to postwar Venice, where there are no pockmarks but the survivors are equally shell-shocked by the nearness of evil. Adam Miller, fresh from a stint as a war crimes investigator in Frankfurt, arrives in Vienna to visit his globe-trotting mother, who is holding tenuously to the remains of her fortune and embarking on an autumnal romance with a Venetian doctor whose wartime associations with the Nazis remain troubling if obscure. Miller begins a tumultuous romance with a Jewish woman whose own wartime experience has left her with deep psychic wounds. Soon enough the past can no longer remain hidden as a stunning murder leaves Adam torn between righting wrongs and protecting those he loves and himself. In a world where alibis are the currency of the era--everyone was "somewhere else when the air-raid sirens covered the sounds of people being dragged off"--Adam attempts to tread lightly through a landscape loaded with moral land mines. As before, Kanon juxtaposes a powerful love story and a gripping thriller against a palpable historical moment, but this time his hero can't quite shoulder the burden, his naive American assumptions about right and wrong leaving him ill-equipped to respond and never quite able to garner our full sympathy. And, yet, the novel holds us completely, with its vision of a sadly inadequate hero striking deep at our worst fears about ourselves. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Jusqu'où peut-on aller pour se forger un alibi ? A la fois roman noir captivant et histoire d'amour tragique, Alibi explore les ambiguïtés de l'après-guerre et dresse le fascinant portrait d'une Venise ténébreuse et secrète. 1946. Tout juste démobilisés, Adam Miller, jeune officier américain, rejoint sa mère, Grace, une riche veuve installée dans un superbe palazzo sur le Grand Canal. Lors d'une réception, il éprouve un coup de foudre pour Claudia ? juive italienne rescapée des camps. Très passionnée, la jeune femme diffère singulièrement des amis frivoles et désabusés que fréquente Grace, notamment le Dr Gianni Maglione, son nouveau prétendant. Adam est persuadé que Gianni n'est qu'un coureur de dot. Mais quand Claudia accuse publiquement ce dernier d'avoir dénoncé son père aux nazis, les soupçons d'Adam prennent une tout autre tournure. Il se lance dans une vertigineuse enquête sur le passé du médecin. Et tandis que remontent à la surface les secrets les plus inavouables de la Sérénissime , Adam va devoir affronter le pire des choix...

t is 1946, and a stunned Europe is beginning its slow recovery from the ravages of World War II. Adam Miller has come to Venice to visit his widowed mother and try to forget the horrors he has witnessed as a U.S. Army war crimes investigator in Germany. Nothing has changed in Venice-not the beautiful palazzi, not the violins at Florian's, not the shifting water that makes the city, untouched by bombs, still seem a dream. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Joseph Kanon est né en 1946 aux Etats-Unis et a mené une longue carrière dans l'édition. Los Alamos (Flammarion, 1998) a été lauréat du prix Edgar du premier roman. Depuis, Belfond a publié L'Ultime Trahison, (2000 ; Pocket, 2006), adapté au cinéma par Steven Sodenbergh, avec George Clooney et Cate Blanchett. Il vit actuellement à New York.