Venetian vespers

An English writer and his secretive bride make a fateful visit to Italy in Banville's eerie latest (after The Drowned). By the time Evelyn Dolman meets American heiress Laura Rensselaer in 1899, he has abandoned his dreams of becoming a "lord of language," and instead made a career writing cheap travel guides. After he proposes to Evelyn, they have sex and she proves to be "no stranger to the night-world where Eros reigns." Her oil baron father, Willard, dies shortly after the wedding, and Laura, refusing to explain why he left her little of his fortune, insists on a belated winter honeymoon in Venice. Dolman, who speaks no Italian, is miserable from the cold and from Laura's refusal to have sex with him since their first and only time. She urges him to visit a café popular with tourists, where he meets a stranger named Freddie FitzHerbert, who claims to be his former schoolmate, and Freddie's alluring sister, Francesca. Dolman returns home drunk and rapes Laura, then wakes to find that she's vanished. As the Italian police organize a search, Dolman, unworried for Laura's safety, begins an affair with Francesca. Banville sustains a sinister atmosphere in the strange and subtle narrative, and he keeps the reader guessing as to what degree Evelyn is the victim of others' machinations. This ambiguous tale will linger in readers' minds. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)

A trip to Venice takes a dark turn for a British writer and his American wife. Evelyn Dolman introduces himself to the readers of Banville's latest, set in the late Victorian era, as "a man of letters," initially hoping for a career that will cement him as "a lord of language," regarded more highly than Tolstoy and Shakespeare. Alas, the Briton has become a mere "Grub Street hack," with one bright spot in his life: He has recently married Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of an American oil magnate who has hired Evelyn to write his biography. After Laura's father dies in a riding accident, Evelyn learns that she was disinherited, and he and his bride go to Venice so that she might recover from her loss. Shortly after arriving at an apartment in the city, Evelyn, at Laura's suggestion, pays a visit to a cafe, where he runs into a man named Freddie, who claims to have been a schoolmate of Evelyn's. Evelyn is skeptical, but his doubts are cast aside when he meets Freddie's beautiful sister, Francesca, with whom he is instantly taken. Evelyn returns to the apartment, drunk, and sexually assaults his wife; the two had seldom been intimate before, and Evelyn regards the attack as an act of revenge. The next morning, Laura is gone, and Evelyn suspects he's either losing his mind or the victim of a mysterious scam: "Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me." Banville once again proves himself a master of suspense, and he captures a noir version of Venice perfectly. Evelyn is a fascinating character: monstrous, certainly, but is he really being manipulated? Is he manipulating the reader? It's an open question, and a testament to Banville's considerable skill as a storyteller. Dark, twisty, and consistently smart: vintage Banville. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.