THE MADMAN OF VENICE

When Ned Fletcher, aspiring poet and clerk to a shipping magnate in Elizabethan London, leaps at the opportunity to accompany his master on a trip to Venice, little does he realize that the two business matters they plan to investigate will be so intertwined. Master Ashby means to resolve two questions: Who is behind the pirate attacks on his ships, and what can he do to help a young Jewish woman who has disappeared from the Venetian Ghetto following an accusation of witchcraft by the powerful Countess Montemoro? Ned hopes, more modestly, to assist Master Ashby and to win the heart of Ashby's beautiful, headstrong and savvy daughter, Celia, who treats Ned like a pesky killjoy of an older brother. Masson draws smoothly from The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet, and with such rich source material, it's hard to go wrong. Some significant sociological anachronisms—would privileged young Christians of the 1600s be so concerned with the impossibility of interfaith relationships? Would women of that era commonly make speeches about gender equality?—mar this otherwise enjoyable, fast-paced romantic mystery. (Historical fiction. YA)