A Beautiful Crime audiobook

First things first, if you're interested in a thriller, but are squeamish or get scared easily, this book is for you. It's not scary nor is it gruesome, but it is good. A Beautiful Crime is my first read by author Christopher Bollen, but now I am totally a fan. The story centers around con-artist couple, Nick Brink and Clay Guillory, and their journey to Venice. In Venice, the duo plan to sell Clay's ex-boyfriend's fake silver at an exponential cost. Clay's boyfriend came from one of the founding families of the early settlements of New York and now that he's passed away, they plan to cash in. The couple brainstorm a plan and decide to take advantage of this oblivious millionaire, who Clay in fact, has a past history with. During the heist, the couple has to jump through hurdles along the way—will this plan actually come to fruition or did they underestimate their target?This synopsis brief that I just provided did not give this book any justice, so I guess just read the plot synopsis provided. A Beautiful Crime is not only a thriller, but it also is a great character study; infused with love, romance, and deception. This may be the first time ever that I've fallen in love with all the characters. Everyone was so multifaceted and deep—it was hard to hate on anybody! I loved Nick and Clay, and I loved their relationship. I loved Clay's history with his ex-boyfriend. I thought Mr. West (the millionaire) was hilarious and goofy at just the best moments. Daniela's honesty was refreshing and a good break from the dark-centric drama. Everyone had a role and it was portrayed perfectly.I loved that A Beautiful Crime was centered around a gay couple, and it wasn't portrayed in a taboo fashion. The story provides a normal view between two men who love each other. It's not over-the-top with their theatrics or made into an unrealistic YA romance like I've seen many authors do lately. The story does show the differences between Millennial gays versus the gay who came before them, which is honestly something I've experienced in New York City as well. I loved the romance between Clay and Nick, and I really wanted to see more into that! I really appreciated how the author portrayed the gay community with respect and gave readers a voyeuristic opportunity into that reality. My favorite aspect of A Beautiful Crime is how atmospheric the novel is! I really felt like I was in Venice with everyone and now I've added it to my travel bucket-list. I genuinely felt that I was right in the midst of all the chaos as the story was venturing forward and that rarely happens to me when I read a novel. I cannot believe I decided to read this so fast because now I'm craving a vacation to Venice! Overall, A Beautiful Crime is a beautiful story about love, conflict, sexuality, and desperation. Go into the story with an open mind and an open heart. There's a chapter in the book that choked me up, but other than that, the book is a fun, wild ride! I still am in shock that I read this book in a day. I see real big things for Christopher Bollen and A Beautiful Crime in 2020.

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |4.25 starsA Beautiful Crime is a tantalisingly suspenseful part thriller part romance, one that brilliantly captures the landscape, aesthetics, and politics of Venice. “The love of the city had killed its people. Quite simply, Venice had been visited to death.”The opening of the novel has a terrific hook. We know that someone at some point is going to die. But who? And how?“When you see an opportunity, take it. You can brood over the ethics later.”Vaguely reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley but starring two much more sympathetic, and empathetic, protagonists, A Beautiful Crime follows a tense cat-and-mouse game in which readers are never sure who is deceiving who.Nick is a twenty-five year old from Ohio whose move to New York didn’t exactly result in a clearer idea of who he is or what he wants to do. His older boyfriend doesn’t seem to understand Nick’s restlessness. When Nick meets Clay, who is just two years older than him and from New York, sparks fly. In spite of their different backgrounds, they fall hard and fast for each other. Clay, rumoured to have murdered his best friend after having tricked him into making him his heir, needs a lot of money and fast. Together they decide that the easiest way to get so much money is to con someone who has more money than sense. It just so happens that the person Clay hates most in the world fits the bill.In order for their plan to succeed they go to Venice since it is where Richard Forsyth West, aka their mark, is currently staying.Christopher Bollen maintains a taut tension throughout the course of his narrative. Readers, alongside Nick and Clay, will fear that some hitch might reveal and ruin their plans. What may appear as simple conversations will have you sitting on the edge of your seat. And while we know that objectively what Nick and Clay are doing is wrong, we are still rooting for them to succeed. Time and time again, in both New York and Venice, Nick and Clay wrestle with their morals as well as their greed, desire, love, and any personal vendettas they may or may not harbour. Bollen's writing style presents us with some breathtaking and insightful descriptions of Venice. As a former resident of the comune of Venice I am perhaps a bit too critical when I read novels that feature this city. So, I’m happy to say, or write, that Bollen's depiction of this city is truly true to life. He really does render its beauty and incongruities, providing an interesting commentary on Venice and its inhabitants, of its fatal dependency on tourism, and of the way it is perceived by the rest of the world. Although both Nick and Clay view Venice through the eyes of an outsider, the Venetians we encounter along the way, from Daniela to Battista, give us an insight of the ‘real’ Venice.“What would Venice be like without any Venetians living in it? There were only fifty-three thousand of these rare humans left, and the number was shrinking by a thousand each year.”Venice is much more than the glamorous backdrop to Nick and Clay con as in many ways it plays a central role in the story. It is a city or romance and of ruin. It fills Nick and Clay with equal parts awe and melancholy. The dizzying spell it casts on those who live there is clear. There were moments in which Bollen's portrayal of Venice brought to mind Thomas Mann’s in Death in Venice. In both of these works Venice appears as a labyrinthine and suggestive city one that might very well bring the worst out of people.“Nick was hallucinating. Hew was mistaking marble ballrooms and gilt facades and velvet-upholstered gondolas for real life. People went mad in Venice because it lacked the reality check of poverty and ugliness and ordinary struggles. ”Alongside this high-stakes con we read of Nick and Clay’s relationship. Part of me wanted to see more of them together but in order for their plan to succeed it is vital they are not seen together, so it made sense that they didn’t get share many scenes. Their feelings for one another add a moving note to the story.Both the secondary characters and the ones who had only small cameos were nuanced and fully fleshed out. At times it was difficult to discern whether someone's intentions were good or bad which made the story all the more compelling.“These monsters, Nick thought, and at the same exact moment, These wonderful people.”Bollen does a terrific job in rendering the ‘artsy’ community of Venice and of giving us an amusing impression of the ‘inglese italianato’ (or perhaps in this case the Americano italianato/the Italianised American) those types of art and cultural enthusiasts who like to play at being intellectual.I also appreciated the novel’s engagement with issues such as racism (Clay is black), class, and privilege. Wealth, youth, and beauty also make their way into Bollen’s narrative. Both Nick and Clay have to confront their own desire for wealth and of what they would be willing to do for their own safety.I only spotted two mistakes in Bollon's Italian which is so refreshing! Usually books set in Italy by non-Italian writers are not only riddled with clichés but with easily avoided mistakes (such as papa instead of papà). Bollon not only captures Venice but he also mentions the Venice-Mestre dynamic.Bollon's engaging prose offers plenty of amusing descriptions (“the silent brag of an attractive companion”), easily renders a beautiful landscape, and provides thoughtful character studies. A Beautiful Crime is an exhilarating novel that will have you flipping pages like there’s no tomorrow. In spite of its dark moments and of the unease the pervades most of its scenes, Bollen’s narrative maintains a beautiful momentum. Through striking depictions of love, friendship, and, of course, Venice A Beautiful Crime is a thrilling read.Some of my favourite quotes“He believed in friendliness the same way he believed in his youth: he thought both could save him. His youth and friendliness were master keys to all future rooms.”“The world promised Nick nothing at that age but showed him glimpses of its finest possibilities.”“For him, walking around as a gay man in his hometown was tantamount to being out on bail: he was free to go about his business, but everyone treated him with a heightened suspicion, as if unsure whether he had committed a crime.”“Nick saw it as a chance to be delivered from the purgatory of mid-twenties aimlessness.”“In the stronghold of dry, hot days, visitors clotted the streets like human glue, and cruise ships barged into San Marco's Basin with horns that blasted louder than any church bells.”“Wheelie suitcases had become the unofficial soundtrack of Venice, a city that had triumphed for millennia on the very absence of wheels.”“It was a secondhand high to watch a first-timer take in the city.”“Another person's idea of normalcy was always a foreign country, just as your borders on that dominion were constantly expanding or shrinking, ejecting proud, long-standing residents while taking in exciting new émigrés that would have been denied entry the year before.”“In the hush of early evening, Venice changed from past to present. ”“Nick preferred to think of people as messy whirlpools of wants and desires, as unpredictable bundles of urges even when the appropriate bait was placed in front of them. ”“Nothing else could touch him, large or small, because he'd filled his quota on pain. But the loss of a parent doesn't immunize a person from betrayal any more than surviving a shark bite protects its victim from a car crash.”“Nick found himself impressed by his own bullshit. It was undeniably top-quality bullshit. It sounded so erudite and convincing, even to the one who was spewing it.”

Good Lord, I am STILL catching up here on Goodreads, adding reviews for books I finished weeks (or even months) ago. How is it that a pandemic and social distancing have made me derelict here? In any case, A BEAUTIFUL CRIME is fantastic -- and I do not throw around that adjective liberally. Christoper Bollen is our era's Patricia Highsmith, and A BEAUTIFUL CRIME is a spectacular slow-burn of a thriller: think THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY for a new generation. The dread is palpable, the grift is fascinating, and the descent from decency to deceit is gripping. Also? Bollen is a brilliant stylist and writer, crafting some of the beautiful and lush sentences I've read this year.

QUICK TAKE: A stunning crime caper with an LGBTQ twist. Set against the backdrop of Venice, Italy, the story revolves around Nick and Clay, a gay couple running from their troubled past to start fresh in Europe. However, in order to start their new life, the couple needs money, so they decide to sell a collection of counterfeit antiques to an unsuspecting American living in Venice who happens to have a complicated history with Clay. It’s part THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, part THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, and to say anything else about the story would spoil the fun. It’s “sophisticated and savage”, full of complicated characters and beautiful imagery; it’s stylish and sexy, but also packs an emotional gut-punch, and it’s the mix of high-stakes and heartbreak that really elevate this book above so many other titles I’ve read this year.⁣⁣

A Beautiful Crime is a twisty, smart M/M heist thriller. The first half was a bit confusing for me due to going back & forth in time and all the different characters but it doesn’t take too long to sharpen to a point and I ploughed through most of it in a single sesh. I was able to escape to Venice, Italy for a few hours and it felt wonderful. Books like this are why I read 🖤

4.0 stars I have wanted to go to Venice for a long time. When I finally had the time COVID got in the way but I still hope to go. This book helped me to experience it vicariously with lots of beautiful and sometimes not so pleasant details. This is the first book I have read by this author. I found I could not read it quickly as it was so descriptive. The con proceeded a little too conveniently at times and there were other instances that were unlikely to have worked out the way they did. I enjoyed the story very much overall in spite of the fact that the main characters were not very likeable. If you like stories about Venice you will enjoy this book.

This book really grabbed my attention & held on from start to finish. I wanted to give it 5 stars but there were two plot holes that just bagged at me though it’s still a really good read.

What attracts me to Christopher Bollen is his tensile literary thrillers. THE DESTROYERS and LIGHTNING PEOPLE were standouts of dramatic and suspenseful plots with prose to match them, and kept me fascinated until the exciting finales. Like DESTROYERS, Bollen selected an exotic backdrop; not Greece this time, but Venice, Italy, for his story of intrigue and grift in his latest boiler, A BEAUTIFUL CRIME. Venice, to me, was like a character in the book—the unique pedestrian city of canals and confinement that, at times, expanded its claustrophobic setting, especially if you’re trying to get away with a “beautiful crime.” It brought me right back to Venice—-the author animated it for me once more.Two fairly new lovers, Nick and Clay, come to Venice from NYC with an agenda to rip off a wealthy American, Richard West, who lives in a historic palazzo, a walled half once shared with a former Dutch scion of NYC, Freddy Van der Haar, who lost his wealth to his flamboyant lifestyle and drugs, and recently died of AIDS. He left it to Clay, a true platonic friend. West lives in the other half of the house.West was an enemy to Freddy, and Clay has his reasons, also. The plan is to sell to West Freddy’s ancestral family’s (now) counterfeit silver, enough to pay off debts and start a new life together, away from their sorrows in NYC. It’s an elaborate but simple plan, but develops into even more entangled grift as their rip-off scheme becomes less risk averse and more perilous. I’ll leave it to the reader to watch the plot amplify.Bollen did an adept job of bringing Clay and Nick to life—less so on some of the secondary characters. Although the brutal plot was believable, and I felt each footfall along the Venetian Lagoon, the middle section of the story lost some tempo, as it lulled me with a stretched out narrative—until a knotty jam shook Nick to the core. It added another layer of suspense, but all this treachery had less effect on Clay and Nick’s relationship than I would have imagined. For me, it wasn’t Bollen’s best, but it possessed an acrid charm. 3.5 rounded upThank you to Harper for sending me an ARC for review

Like a five course meal in which each course leaves you both reflecting on what's passed and eager for what's to come, Christopher Bollen's "A Beautiful Crime," is the queer suspense novel I didn't know I needed until I finished it.Nick and Clay, a young, interracial gay couple from New York City have landed right at the heart of a Venice in the throes of a city overrun by tourists. Putting together a con that will hopefully bring this rural Midwestern boy and black gay boy from the Bronx a bit of freedom and stability, the boys go further and deeper than either of them planned. Fading in and out from stories in both cities, Bollen uses suspense and relief as a way to deliver a story that is queer and shocking, but also deeply thoughtful.With complex characters, suspense on every page, and a plot line that will have you hooked, I'd be surprised if you didn't finish this book in one sitting.

You know, it would be the easiest thing in the world to just say "Be Gay, Do Crimes: Venice Edition!" and call it a review, and I was kind of expecting to do so before I picked this one up, but this was just too goddamn good of a book to be flippant about.From one of the best opening chapters I've read in a while, I was invested in this meticulously researched novel. I'm one of those people who can spend hours on Google Earth just zooming around for fun, so when the opening scene describes a pier called Ca' Rezzonico being just across the Grand Canal from San Samuele, of course I had to look it up. Sure enough, they're just opposite from each other. Hell, most of this book can be traced to very specific real-world locations, and even the made up ones pull so heavily on certain neighborhoods that I could believe they were real. There are a few mentions to specific works of art as well, and it was neat to look them up and see the exact same thing the characters were describing seeing.Venice itself surpassed being just a setting and became a character itself in this story with its own desires and needs and flaws. But that's not to say the rest of the cast couldn't hold up on their own; this was actually a very strong roster of people I enjoyed reading about. You had the passionate locals trying to defend their city from hordes of tourists, the young and ambitious couple Nick and Clay who came to the city to pull off a con, and an expertly charismatic antagonist (who oddly enough really reminded me of my father-in-law; it's not often a book character reminds me of someone from my personal life). They all made for an interesting web of interactions, and the house of cards that Nick and Clay constructed to walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars of another man's money constantly threatened to come crashing down depending on who knew what and when.One of my favorite characters in this book was dead before it even began (which kind of set the whole plot in motion), and we only visit this eccentric old Manhattan socialite in flashbacks, at the twilight of his life. But he tied into a theme of older generations of gay men passing down specific knowledge and experiences to the younger one so perfectly that the core of the book would've suffered without his absence. All this despite the fact that, again, he was dead before we met him.The story isn't told in a strictly chronological order, but it never got confusing. This wasn't an especially violent book with shootouts or assassins or anything bloody, but the stakes still felt high. The ending felt realistic and earned; it wasn't a perfect storybook happily ever after, but it was as good as it could have been as a direct result of the choices made by these flawed protagonists. And they were very much different people at the end of this story than they were at the beginning, which is always the sign of a competent writer in my opinion.If you want a low-stakes thriller that's well-written and has an authentic portrayal of gay culture (both modern and older), this is your book.

It’s risky to write a novel set in Venice. Eminent literary shades --- Thomas Mann, Henry James, Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith --- inevitably gather, setting up echoes and comparisons: DEATH IN VENICE meets THE WINGS OF THE DOVE meets DON’T LOOK NOW meets THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY. On the other hand, La Serenissima, with its ravishing water and light, its mazelike streets, never fails to dazzle and enchant. (I’m lucky enough to have just been there, which made reading this book all the more fun.)A BEAUTIFUL CRIME, Christopher Bollen’s fourth novel, has some of the same themes as that roll call of Venice-inspired books: schemes to swindle the wealthy, same-sex love, getting away with murder. Former editor-in-chief of Interview, the author no doubt has intimate knowledge of the rich, arty and offbeat --- and he’s adept at imagining the tangled psyches of those who plot to rip them off.Getting the reader to root for a charming con man/killer --- in this case, two of them --- is a classic fictional strategy, from Ripley to (more recently) ethical serial killer Dexter and Joe, the stalker/murderer guy in YOU. Bollen pulls it off. And by making Nick Brink and Clay Guillory not only co-conspirators but lovers, he appeals to the romantic in all of us. We don’t want them to be caught; we want them to get their happily-ever-after.The story is told alternately from the two men’s points of view. Nick, a newcomer to Venice, is a devastatingly handsome, compulsively flirtatious guy from Dayton, Ohio: bullied as a kid, still closeted to his family (“For him, walking around as a gay man in his hometown was tantamount to being out on bail: he was free to go about his business, but everyone treated him with a heightened suspicion, as if unsure whether he had committed a crime”), and chafing at the role (“the eternal apprentice”) laid out for him by Ari, his older, highly cultured, marriage-minded boyfriend in New York.Clay’s first contact with Venice, like Bollen’s, was as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the city’s premier modern-art museum; he describes himself as “a middle-class black kid from the Bronx suddenly crowned a prince of Italy.” Still reeling from the premature death of his mother (who “smothered him with love and acceptance” when he came out) and the remoteness of his grieving father, Clay was at a vulnerable point when he became the part-time assistant of an affluent American expatriate, Richard Forsyth West. Later, he found out that his employer had spread false rumors about him, sabotaging his chances for a permanent job at the museum.It was then that Clay became the soulmate of one Freddy van der Haar, scion of an illustrious Dutch-American family that had fallen on hard times and a legendary, flamboyant figure in New York’s gay subculture. For four years Clay lived with Freddy in Venice, Paris and Brooklyn; cared for him during his final illness; and, when he died, inherited some “antique” silver of dubious authenticity; part of a Venetian palazzo; and a humongous pile of debts. Now he needs money, and he wants revenge on West.The route to both is to get West to pay hundreds of thousands for the phony heirlooms. Nick’s role is to authenticate them (Ari, an expert on silver, taught him enough to pose as a professional). So far, so good. Until, well… A BEAUTIFUL CRIME is the kind of novel where you just know something is going to go wrong with the scam sooner or later, leading one or both of the guys to commit acts they’d never imagined themselves capable of. But you don’t know when, or how, and Bollen is adept at keeping the suspense nicely taut.He also excels at evoking Venice itself. His fascination with the watery city is clear, his descriptions both accurate and eloquent. Clay “loved getting lost. It seemed like the whole point of Venice, built to trick and confuse. Taking a wrong turn and nearly plunging into a canal or skipping over a bridge that dead-ended in a brick wall was part of the town’s fugitive magic.” Bollen underlines the tension between those who want to save Venice, preserving its ancient glories, and those who replace palazzi with cheap tourist housing and run roughshod over the diminishing number of people, only 53,000, who actually live there. “I’m afraid the tourists are finally winning,” Daniela, a friend of Clay’s, tells Nick. “We’ve been conquered by a well-organized army of occupiers who have no interest in staying more than three nights.” Or, to put it another way, “Venice has been visited to death.”While Bollen’s characterizations of Venice really sing (“a symphony playing inside a shipwreck”), his people aren’t always as vivid. Supporting players like Ari, Freddy and West’s current assistant, Battista --- even the villainous silver expert Dulles Hawkes --- seem to me more colorful than Nick and Clay, who need to be presented attractively and somewhat blandly in order to sustain the reader’s sympathy.Nick especially is a bit of a cipher, cute and initially rather passive. He hasn’t yet found his life’s passion; meanwhile, “he has Clay.” Clay is tougher; he grew up “expecting every door to be nailed shut before he even reached to open it.” Yet he, too, is sweet and decent, hardly a hustler or gold digger, though Freddy’s old friends label him as just that.Some critics have compared Bollen to Patricia Highsmith; however, I think he’s gentler than she is. Unlike her antihero, the amoral Ripley, Nick and Clay struggle with conscience; there is nothing offhand about their crimes and misdemeanors. “I’m a really bad crook,” Nick tells Clay. His response: “A bad crook is the best kind.” A BEAUTIFUL CRIME has a lot more heart than Highsmith’s dark thrillers, but the plotting is less skillful, lacking the surprise twists I expected.If the structure is imperfect, the setting is marvelous. Venice isn’t just a scenic background for the action of A BEAUTIFUL CRIME. Its capricious tides and twisty, deceptive geography seem to mirror the characters’ secrets and intrigues. I rooted for Clay and Nick to get away with their swindle. I also rooted --- and still do --- for proud, resilient Venice to survive the floods of water and tourists that threaten to drown her.Reviewed by Katherine B. Weissman

I received an advanced copy via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.My first ARC finished this year! And a really good one, too. This book is a wonderful mystery to read in a rainy afternoon - this character-oriented story follows two young men in love as they plan the scam that will save them from financial ruin. I loved how atmospheric this was, and it's definitely not a quick thriller kind of book - it's one to savor slowly and get emotionally connected to the main characters, understand their motivations. I loved it - it was very The Talented Mr Ripley, charming and romantic, even. The ending had me SO ANXIOUS. Great read.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. I always wanted to read "just one more chapter," which is a sign of great read to me! I agree with those who compare the story and characters to Patricia Highsmith AND with those who remark upon the vivid world-building in Venice. It also has a whiff of Goldfinch about it (maybe it's the antique store aspect or the hint of old New York or the heist travel to Europe), but somehow I found myself absorbing and re-reading passages in a way that reminded me of my first time through the Goldfinch (which is one of my all-time favs). If you're looking for beautifully written prose with a tension-filled plot set in steamy Venice, this one is for you!

Mi ha vagamente ricordato Il talento di Mr Ripley. Bellissime le atmosfere, un po' frettoloso il finale.

Reckless, young, vengeful,scheming, panicked, broken—lost innocents abroad.

The population of Venice has dropped from 175,000 after World War II to just over 52,000 today, the massive decrease driven largely by the overwhelming tourism that floods in every year much like the sea that’s slowly dragging the city under. This is just one of the ancillary components that amplifies @christbollen’s fantastic “A Beautiful Crime”, and the setting for young grifters Clay and Nick to make their mark. Bollen shifts his non-linear narrative between our two ambitious lovers deftly setting up an act of revenge while keeping the reader on slightly unsteady ground.This is an intellectual thriller that’s threaded with commentary on race and social class that I thought was just brilliant, and made me check my own assumptions and prejudices while reading. It would be easy for Bollen to create ugly, unsympathetic portrayals of these two men, but he does the complete opposite, making them both exceedingly charming and compassionate as they increasingly find themselves over their heads.Additionally, he’s also written a great collection of distinct and well drawn supporting characters including Nick’s ex lover in New York City, an elderly transgender woman, and the man marked to be taken by our driven protagonists. And finally, Venice. Bollen states in the notes how he lived there for months in 1999 interning at the Peggy Guggenheim museum. (which one of his characters had as well). It’s evident he managed to absorb the atmosphere like a sponge, and translate it into text, and it becomes a character in its own right, its quarried stone streets spread out like a maze. You’ll almost feel the crush of the crowds at San Marco square and hear the gondoliers singing. I highly recommend you mix a Negroni and add this terrific book to your #TBR list for the summer. I loved it.

A part of him had expected to be disappointed by Venice; surely the city had been overhyped his whole life. Now he faced the far more unusual prospect of agreeing with common opinion: Venice was a symphony playing inside a shipwreck. My God, this book was astounding. I love a good grifter novel, and A Beautiful Crime is a flawlessly executed one. This is a novel about bohemian culture, art, revenge, and desperation, but at its heart it's really about all the different iterations of love. Christopher Bollen's writing is literary and observant, at turns tender and sharp as a knife's edge, while also maintaining an almost unbearable suspense as the plot unfolds. The plotting and pacing are flawless, and these characters -- they are richly-realized and diverse and so incredibly human, and they got under my skin in the best way and brought me to tears more than once. My favorite character in the book, though, was Venice itself -- because this book is so intensely atmospheric that the setting feels like a character in and of itself. I felt utterly transported to Venice while reading this book, and even though I'd never really considered it a place I wanted to visit, the vibrancy with which Bollen brought it to life earned it a spot on my bucket list. There really isn't anything I didn't love about A Beautiful Crime. It was brilliantly executed and enthralling from the first page to the last. Highly recommended.

A psychological funhouse of a thriller. The twisty, deceptive geography of Venice is the perfect setting for this twisty story about two deceptive hustlers in love scheming to get rich quick. The cat and mouse plot is enhanced as it is masterfully told from both con-artists’ point of view—never knowing who are the good guys and who are the bad and, subsequently, turning each page with intrigue.