Jane Wunderly #7
Vengeance in Venice is the seventh full-length novel in Erica Ruth Neubauer’s Jane Wunderly series, set in the 1920s in various locations around the world. The adventurous Jane is an American war widow whose abusive first husband was killed in World War I. Now she is much more happily married to the Englishman Redvers, who conducts secret missions for the British government. Jane is a full partner in Redvers’ investigations, and their witty dialogue is one of the outstanding features of the series. The couple met in Egypt in the first novel, Murder at the Mena House, and their adventures have taken them to, among other places, Istanbul, a Scottish island, and, most recently, India. The series also includes a delightful Christmas novella, Murder Under the Mistletoe, which should not be missed. Part of the fun of the series is trying to figure out where Jane’s and Redvers’ adventures will take them next.
This novel takes them to one of my favorite cities, Venice. Jane and Redvers are on their long-delayed honeymoon when they run into Jane’s Aunt Millie and her husband, Lord Hughes, at their lovely Venetian hotel. Aunt Millie likes to take charge wherever she goes, and she frequently interferes in Jane’s investigations, something which Redvers tends to take more easily than Jane. Lord Hughes is quieter, and he is a calming influence on his wife. Millie arrives with an invitation from a friend of hers, Clara Morton, a wealthy American woman, to a costume party at Clara’s palazzo.
The party is an extravagant one, and the hostess is eccentric and keeps unusual pets, including a cheetah and several snakes. A dead body is found in the garden, and it turns out to be Clara’s ex-husband, the poet Christopher D’Annuzzio, who is very loosely based on the famous Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. (As Neubauer says in her author’s note, Clara is inspired by an heiress who had an affair with the real D’Annunzio.) At first it is not known whether the fictional D’Annuzzio died of natural causes or murder, but of course, this being a mystery, it is murder. The police arrive and find marks on D’Annuzzio’s neck, confirming that he was murdered. What they don’t tell anyone, and what Redvers learns through his government connections, is that the actual cause of death was snake venom, not strangulation.
Suspicion immediately falls on Deanna Parks, an acquaintance of Jane’s. Deanna and her husband, Charlie, are vaudeville performers Jane met in Egypt in the first book in the series. Deanna is reading tarot cards at the party and, before the party began, D’Annuzzio had touched her inappropriately and she had kicked him. Deanna knows how to handle snakes, which is another reason the police suspect her. Soon she is arrested and sent to jail. Jane, of course, is certain Deanna is innocent, and she and Redvers, with help (sometimes welcome, sometimes not) from Millie and Hughes, decide to find the real murderer and prove her friend’s innocence.
One of the first people Jane suspects is Clara, but she insists she didn’t kill her ex-husband, and she names several people, all guests at the party, who had motives to kill him. All of these people, at one time or another, had affairs with Clara or D’Annuzzio or both. Jane is by no means a prude, but this frequent swapping of partners shocks her. Jane and Redvers travel over the canals of Venice by gondola or rented boat to interview the suspects, many of whom are quite unsympathetic. The most likeable of the lot is Kate Conrad, a painter who is in a romantic relationship with Clara. Kate was all set to have a solo exhibition, which is what she always dreamed of, when D’Annuzzio ruined her plans. There is also a Spanish musician who seems to have had a same-sex relationship with D’Annuzzio. Other suspects include a brother and sister who, Jane thinks, are more intimate with each other than a pair of siblings should be, and a young woman who is a friend of the siblings and keeps changing her lodgings, first living in D’Annuzzio’s apartment and then with the siblings.
Jane’s and Redvers’ interviews with this group of suspects seem to go nowhere, and then more suspects turn up: Clara’s first husband, who has lost his fortune and wants to remarry Clara for her money, and their troubled teenage daughter. Then Jane learns that Deanna’s husband, Charlie, was at the party in disguise when he was supposed to have stayed home. His behavior is suspicious, to say the least, and he runs off when things start looking bad for him.
Millie decides to gather all the suspects together at another dinner party at Clara’s palazzo, hoping to find the real murderer. It does not go as expected, and instead of the revelation of the murderer, there is another death, in circumstances where you don’t know if the person who dies is the intended victim or not. Jane and Redvers are determined to find the killer before anyone else is killed.
This is a wonderful addition to the series, not least because of the Venetian setting. I love Neubauer’s descriptions of Venice and, having been there myself, I know she gets it right. She writes mouth-watering descriptions of the Italian food Jane and Redvers eat at their favorite restaurant. Jane loves coffee and develops a taste for Italian espresso. Neubauer’s sense of setting is one of the great strengths of her series. The novel takes many turns, including one shocking one about halfway through, which I will not reveal because it would be a spoiler. Neubauer keeps you guessing, and I did not figure out who the killer was until the end. I highly recommend this series to fans of Tasha Alexander, Dianne Freeman, Alyssa Maxwell, and Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series. The relationship between Jane and Redvers reminds me, at times, of Amelia and Emerson. Each book stands alone, but I would recommend beginning with the first one, so you can see how the relationship develops. I am already looking forward to finding out where Jane and Redvers will go in their next adventure. — Vicki Kondelik