The Last Gondola — Edward Sklepowich

The Last Gondola brings back Urbino Macintyre, American expatriate writer, and his good friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, in another classic mystery set in the Venice of the wealthy international set amid the artists, authors and patrons of their arts. It is a dark story beginning with the mysterious disappearance of objects from the Contessa's palatial apartment. The strangest part of the thefts is that most of the objects themselves are not of any significant monetary value, and those that are are only incidentally so. Urbino, the author of several biographies, traces clues to the cave-like home of a strange, reclusive art collector. Urbino's effort to pin the thefts on this rather sinister old man or a member of his odd household leads the amateur detective into a dangerous and frightening situation.