Death in a Serene City is the first book of the Urbino Macintyre mystery series by Edward Sklepowich. The story is set in Venice Italy during the weeks prior to carnevale in 1987. A wide variety of characters are introduced: a washerwoman, a hunchback, a priest, a countess, writers and artists. None are fleshed out in personality, but each eventually contributes at least a little bit to the solution.Allow plenty of time to read this book; it’s certainly not light entertainment like a page-turner or a beach-read provides. The author is a Fulbright scholar, and it shows: his narrative is at the college reading level, with constant references to history, art, the classics, literature, Italian phrases… Fascinating information can be learned by following up references on Wikipedia as you read. Frankly the references are more interesting than the mystery: I first tried to read the book without stopping to look up references, but found it far too dull. Since I was reading the book for the “Venice in February Reading Challenge”, I felt compelled to continue, so I began following along with Wikipedia to enjoy it more. Many references are completely irrelevant to the story, such as “andron”, the classical Greek term for men’s living quarters (as opposed to women’s living quarters) in a house.Mystery books typically start with a death and consist of the process of unraveling clues to identify the killer and his/her motivation. Although a death occurs early in this book, unlike most other mysteries it is not the subject of Urbino’s investigation. He does not decide to investigate anything until page 100, and then he is only interested in the second death. He goes around talking to people (and not finding out much) for the next 100 pages. Meanwhile more deaths occur. Finally Urbino looks for connections between the deaths. He becomes rather smug around page 250, when he begins to figure it out. Urbino stages a not-very-suspenseful confrontation to reveal the killer. The intricate and far-fetched plot is the least interesting part of the book. Of more interest is Venice itself, the glassblowers on Murano, burials on the cemetery island, the masks worn for carnevale, and dramatic Acqua Alta (high tides).
This is the first book in a series by Edward Sklepowich, featuring a writer/sleuth by the name of Urbino Macintyre. I did like this book but not sure to what depth. This was one of those books where I was always stopping to Google something on the computer that was mentioned in the book. Unlike the mystery books I’ve been reading that are set in Florence, I have no visual map in my mind of Venice. And so I felt compelled to look up this church that is mentioned or that location, such as the isle of Murano. By the time I finished the book I had learned quite a lot about Venice…which is reason enough for me to continue reading the other books in this series.I felt that at times the book moved rather slowly. Urbino Macintyre kept going back and forth, revisiting theories he had entertained about the murder of Maria. I found myself growing impatient with only being allowed a bit of information to be given to me and then having to wait until Urbino went back to talk to certain characters one more time.From a plot point of view the book was solid even if the reason for the murder was less sensational than I might have wanted. Still, I’ve already requested the next book in the series from the library so I can continue reading about murder in Venice.
