LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Part of Ben Pastor’s Martin Bora series, The Venus of Salo is sophisticated, characterful and inventively twisty. Striking a brilliant balance between literary verve and lucidity, it’s a must-read for fans of gripping historic crime.
It’s October 1944 and Bora is sent to Salò on the shores of Lake Garda to find out how a valuable painting came to be taken from a private residence: “It’s not just a painting…Why, it’s a work by Titian, Herr Oberst. Certified and worth a fortune. A spectacular Venus reclining on a couch.”
As emerges when Bora begins to grapple with the case, a depiction of Venus isn’t the only beautiful female form that needs to be investigated — three female bodies have been found dead, all of them beautiful, all apparently killed by their own hand, and all in comparably elegant fashion. Murder must be at play…
With Bora implicated in the deaths, the stakes couldn’t be higher as he works to discover the truth and clear his own name. At once introspective and gripping, The Venus of Salo is a thrillingly tense novel.
Joanne Owen
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The Venus of Salo Synopsis
October 1944, in the Republic of Salò, a German puppet state in the north of Italy and the last fascist stronghold in the country. After months of ferocious fighting on the Gothic Line, Colonel Martin Bora of the Wehrmacht is handed a new, red-hot case. Transferred to the town of Salò on the shore of Lake Garda, he must investigate the theft of a precious painting of Venus by Titian, stolen with uncanny ease from a local residence. While Bora’s inquiry proceeds among many difficulties, discovering three dead bodies throws an even more sinister light on the scene. The victims are female, very beautiful, apparently dead by their own hand but in fact, elegantly murdered. Is it the work of a serial killer, or are the homicides somehow related to the stolen Venus? Why were intriguing clues left behind for Bora to find? And why is there an official attempt to make the investigator himself appear as the culprit? Caught in an unforeseeable web of events, hounded by the Gestapo (for years at his heels on the charge of anti-Nazi activities), hopelessly in love with an enigmatic, real-flesh “Venus,” Bora must resort to all his courage and ability – not only to solve the mystery and expose the perpetrator, but also, in a breathtaking crescendo, to try to save himself from the firing squad and secure an unlikely way out...
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781916725065 |
| Publication date: |
23rd May 2024 |
| Author: |
Ben Pastor |
| Publisher: |
Bitter Lemon Press |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
400 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Fiction in translation
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| Other Genres: |
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Author
About Ben Pastor
Ben Pastor was born in Italy and lived for thirty years in the United States, working as a university professor in Illinois, Ohio and Vermont, before returning to her native country. The Venus of Salò is the eighth in the Martin Bora series published by Bitter Lemon Press and follows on from the success of The Night of Shooting Stars, The Horseman's Song, The Road to Ithaca, Tin Sky, A Dark Song of Blood, Liar Moon and Lumen. She is the author of other novels including the highly acclaimed The Water Thief and The Fire Waker, and is considered one of the most talented writers in the field of historical fiction. In 2008 she won the Premio Zaragoza for best historical fiction, and in 2018 she was awarded the prestigious Premio Internazionale di Letteratura Ennio Flaiano.
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