PALACE OF THE DROWNED

A bestselling British author takes refuge from self-inflicted scandal in Venice.

Fortunately, this novel is set in the 1960s, since its most crucial plot developments could not have occurred in the 2020s. Glaring among these is the fact that going to Venice to escape a scandal in London would no longer be an option, scandals being inescapable. Stung by a dismissive anonymous review of her latest novel, Frances “Frankie” Croy seethes for a few weeks, then, at a literary gala, confides drunkenly in a waiter before slugging a stranger. The waiter turns out to be a tabloid reporter. After Frankie spends a stint in a posh asylum, her best friend, Jack, offers her family’s palazzo in Venice as a place for Frankie to recuperate and perhaps start the fifth novel her faithful editor, Harold, has been nagging her for. To Frankie’s consternation, Jack and her husband, Leonard, delay joining her in Venice, which, conveniently for the plot, allows Frankie to get in the kind of trouble a lonely midlife author is prone to, especially one with a severe but unacknowledged drinking problem and who fears her talent is waning. Enter 26-year-old fan/stalker Gilly, who buttonholes Frankie in the fish market, claiming to be the daughter of a colleague. At first, Frankie is charmed by Gilly’s youthful hero worship and willingness to befriend an older woman of 42. But something is “off” about “the girl.” Are Gilly’s changing stories calculated or absent-minded? Much of the suspense here is driven by misdirection, abetted by Frankie’s puzzling inability to ask pointed questions. Not surprisingly, it develops that Gilly herself has writerly ambitions, and the narrative takes an All About Eve turn. A reference to Patricia Highsmith, like Chekhov’s gun, will also play out, because Gilly has much in common with Ripley, in that her real aim is to supplant her hero. These tropes wind down in a not entirely unexpected but fitting way.

Against the grim backdrop of off-season Venice, literary rivalry can be menacing.