The Last Gondola

Urbino McIntyre Mystery #7

by Edward Sklepowich

Investigating a few lost trinkets, Urbino Macintyre discovers a mysterious murder

Samuel Possle is Venice’s oldest expatriate, a reclusive former playboy whose hedonistic youth would make the perfect subject for a book—that is, if any writer could make him talk. Biographer and amateur sleuth Urbino Macintyre has been trying for months to get an interview with Possle, and he is about to give up when his closest friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, offers to introduce him to Possle in exchange for a favor. Worthless items have gone missing from her home, and she wants Macintyre to find out if they were stolen or if her mind is beginning to slip. What appears to be an innocuous case will lead Macintyre down a treacherous canal.
 
Interviewing Possle and searching for the contessa’s missing baubles draws the detective into the city’s gothic underbelly, where dark figures seem to lurk around every corner, and the fog conceals terrible secrets.

Genres: Mystery, Italy

332 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

EDWARD SKLEPOWICH has been an expatriate American for many years. He has been a Fullbright scholar of American literature in Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia. He divides his time between Tunisia, where he is a university lecturer, Venice, New York, and a former Phoenician town on the Tunisian Mediterranean called Sousse. His deep feeling for Venice is one expression of his maternal Italian heritage.
Interview with Edward Sklepowich

Series:
* Urbino McIntyre Mystery

Reviews

[Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Gondola, A Mystery of Venice #7, features ex-pat Urbino Macintye and his friend the Contessa da Capo-Zenrini. Urbino, who writes biographies of people who lived in Venice, becomes interested in a fellow ex-pat Samuel Possle, now a recluse. Urbino is also investigating the theft of several items of clothing from the Contessa's home, and the death of a young man, a friend of his gondolier. Fascinating characters, tight plot with lots of red herrings. A delight.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took much too long to get to a disappointing denouement. I did enjoy the characters for the most part, but I wished they weren't so introspective and cautious. If everyone had been a little more forthright, we could have settled all this in half the pages. (When I enjoy a book, I don't care how long it is, but when I'm mostly driven by the need to get to the solution of the puzzle, I can do without some of the atmosphere.) But it was set in Venice, which was described beautifully, so it gets at least one star for that.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another splendid installment in this intelligent, literary series where the magical Venice is a character in itself. The main characters of Urbino MacIntyre and the Contessa Barbara feel like friends to me. I hope the author continues the series beyond the 9th installment, as I don't want it to end!

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mystery series set in Venice. Although I enjoy the series, this is one of the less successful books in the series.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somehow I don't find this series very satisfying, but I keep reading because I love Venice.