The Last Gondola: A Mystery of Venice [Hardcover]

Edward Sklepowich (Author)

Book Description

Series: Urbino Macintyre, 7 | Publication Date: July 16, 2003

The Last Gondola brings back Urbino Macintyre, American expatriate writer, and his good friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, in another classic mystery set in the Venice of the wealthy international set amid the artists, authors and patrons of their arts. It is a dark story beginning with the mysterious disappearance of objects from the Contessa's palatial apartment. The strangest part of the thefts is that most of the objects themselves are not of any significant monetary value, and those that are are only incidentally so. Urbino, the author of several biographies, traces clues to the cave-like home of a strange, reclusive art collector. Urbino's effort to pin the thefts on this rather sinister old man or a member of his odd household leads the amateur detective into a dangerous and frightening situation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his seventh Urbino Macintyre mystery (after 2002's Deadly to the Sight), Sklepowich nicely evokes modern Venice with its narrow streets, twisting canals and magnificent old houses, but these attractive details serve merely as backdrop for an overlong story that fails to grip. An American expatriate and author of biographies, Macintyre is obsessed by Samuel Possle, an elderly recluse whose cooperation he seeks for his next book. That preoccupation guides his nighttime wanderings, and he repeatedly finds that his path leads to the mysterious hermit's palazzo. On one such excursion, Macintyre witnesses, or thinks he witnesses, a severed head being dangled from an upper story, as ghostly shrieks seem to accuse the building itself of monstrous evil. As he seeks the right entree into Possle's company, his patroness, Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, whose latest benefaction is Macintyre's own personal gondola, asks him to look into a minor domestic puzzle: certain of her clothes and jewels have started to disappear. Unsurprisingly, Macintyre's inquiry into the missing items ends up apparently connecting with Possle's household. The reader has to turn far too many pages before gaining a sense of what the sleuth is supposed to be solving. The Gothic climax leads to an overly pat resolution that does little to burnish Macintyre's reputation as an amateur detective.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Sklepowich's "novels of Venice" (this is the seventh) carry the kind of overblown prose and creaky plot devices that some readers regard as classical, and others consider schmaltzy. The tone is feverish Romantic, with a narrative style reminiscent of Poe's "Cask of Amontillado." The narrator, American expatriate writer Urbino Macintyre, obsessed with his latest subject for biography, Venice's oldest and most reclusive expatriate, is given to midnight walks through the city, where he observes (of course) mysterious cloaked figures, strange sounds, and a sobbing woman on a bridge as he moons around outside his subject's palazzo. Urbino's longtime friend, the contessa da Capo-Zendrini, is distressed by small thefts from her household: a necklace, a gown, a scarf. Urbino's investigation leads him to an eccentric old man, an unhealthy household, and personal peril. Only a few time references give away that this is actually a contemporary mystery. A corny but popular series, especially for PBS Mystery fans. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (July 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312290497
• ISBN-13: 978-0312290498
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #376,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gothic mystery of Venice and more!, November 6, 2003

By 

avidmysterian - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Gondola: A Mystery of Venice (Hardcover)

The Last Gondola, number 7 in a series, is an exciting and intriguing mystery set in an ominous and also beautiful Venice and revolving around an expatriate Amrican detective named Urbino Macintyre, art, literature, music, gondola-making, Peggy Guggenheim, and the Armenian group of monks on a lagoon island. And more! Sklepowich takes two simple situations--objects missing from a Grand Canal palazzo and interviews with an eighty-year-old man with a notorious past--and embroiders them into a complicated story written in an elegant, old-fashioned style. He combines the classical mystery (leisurely pace, cerebral and eccentric amateur sleuth, interviews, tea, conversations, gossip) with Gothic elements such as strange noises and laughter, mad women, sinister mutes, hints of vampirism, etc. Giving more richness to the interesting multilayered story and unusual mixture are clever hints and allusions to other literary works (Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Byron's poems, mysteries, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice) in a kind of postmodern way. As Urbino says to his fashionable and aristocratic Watson, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, when they are gliding in his gondola down a canal, "The writers about Venice have all done it before." In the face of this undeniable truth he says that he and the Contessa must make their contributions to the Venice symphony their own. The Last Gondola does exactly this. Not only is the mystery at the center a fascinating puzzle but there are many other facets as well to give extra enjoyment to the careful reader.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting tale of Venice, October 27, 2003

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Gondola: A Mystery of Venice (Hardcover)

Urbino Macintyre has become obsessed with the idea of writing a biography of a reclusive American living in Venice. His obsession has led to strange dreams about fire and destruction, but hasn't led to much else--until suddenly the recluse invites Urbino to visit him in his Venitian Plazio. What Urbino finds is a strangely deteriorating mansion, a strangely deteriorating man, and a mute servant with burned arms. A feeling of haunting surrounds the ancient home and Urbino feels that he is being made the butt of some monstrous plot, although he can't figure out the object.

Urbino's other tasks, including the discovery of who has stolen his friend, the Countessa's clothing, take second place to unravelling the mystery of Urbino's fellow American in Venice.

Author Edward Sklepowich writes knowingly of Venice--both the current (but not modern) city, and the city described by poets and philosophers of the ages. Indeed, much of the pleasure of THE LAST GONDOLA comes not from the mystery, but from the atmosphere of the city, of culture and secret knowledge. Hints of lost poems by Byron add to the feeling of sensation that fill this story. Mystery fans may grow impatient with the slow pace at which the mystery evolves, the strange coincidences that are contorted to make the story, and with Urbino's apparent willingness to leave all morals behind in pursuit of his personal goals, however.

THE LAST GONDOLA is a strange and interesting story. Readers with a deep interest in the fascinating city of Venice will find that the novel rewards their reading.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very dark and atmospheric novel, July 2, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Gondola: A Mystery of Venice (Hardcover)

After his divorce and the death of his parents, there was nothing to keep Urbino Macintyre from accepting his inheritance of the Palazzo Vecello in Venice, Italy. The former New Orleans citizen embraces all things Venetian, so much so, that his good friend the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini gave him his very own gondola so that he wouldn't have to use public transportation. The two American expatriates are very good friends so it is easy to confide in Urbino that she is missing some clothing and inexpensive jewelry and is afraid she is sliding into senility.

Urbino assures her that she is as sane as he and he will use all his skills as an amateur sleuth to discover what happened to the contessa's belongings. Urbino is also obsessed with the Ca' Pozza and it's owner Samuel Possle, another American expatriate. When he finally gains entrance into the house, Possle doesn't address the question of Urbino writing a biography about him but hints that he has something that the writer wants. Little does Urbino know that there is a malevolent evil permeating the very walls of the Ca' Pozza and it somehow involves the Contessa and her missing possessions.

THE LAST GONDOLA is a very dark and atmospheric novel, gothic in scope with a brooding protagonist in the tradition of Jane Eyre's Heathcliffe. The author does such a good job of describing Venice that readers will feel that they have journeyed there. There are various subplots that slide into the main story line but readers won't realize how they intertwine until the last chapter when all the questions are finally answered.

Harriet Klausner