The characters are all despicable in their own ways, and readers will lose no sleep over Dolman’s unravelling. That said, they will probably stay awake to finish the book.
The events of the novel are compressed into a matter of days. Each vividly evoked moment leads on to the next with a deepening sense of intrigue. While the prose is dense, the action behind it is so clearly conceived that you feel as though you’re watching it unfold before you. The geography of the city, the layout of the Palazzo Dioscuri, the passing of time – it’s all conveyed with a cinematic intensity ... As it stands, Venetian Vespers is a memorable and disturbing read; the frustration I felt is that, written with more economy, it could have been a gasp-inducing stiletto of a book.
Maps out a territory halfway between Banville’s supreme fictions and his more forthright entertainments ... An intricate thriller that is also a slyly fashioned work of art; a pastiche that is also indisputably the real thing. John Banville, up to his old tricks.
