There are millions of Venice-lovers out there. If you want a reminder of why people adore this unique city on the water here’s a book for you. Dream of Venice is a compendium of photos by Charles Christopher with words by a selection of writers and artists associated with the city over the years, from Woody Allen to Julie Christie, star of Don’t Look Now.
I’m delighted to be represented too with an extract from Carnival for the Dead, which is set entirely in Venice during the February carnival.
You can read more about the book on this site. I very specifically tried to capture the atmosphere of the city during a freezing February carnival, and spent a lot of effort there trying to get it right. Given that Venice is an unreal place at the best of times the idea of setting a story there when it deliberately tries to put on a show was a challenge I found quite irresistible.
Carnival isn’t conventional crime or thriller though. It’s what I think of as an entertainment — a toying with literary forms, false stories within false stories, designed to evoke the atmosphere of carnival itself.
Here’s a clip from the Dream of Venice’s Facebook page. I’m delighted to say I’ll be back in Venice next month for a week finishing off a new book. I seem to have fallen into that habit over the past few years — it’s the perfect place to work undisturbed. So the third Pieter Vos tale, set entirely in the Netherlands, will be completed in Dorsoduro.
And here are a few of the hundreds of photos I took while researching the book.
David Hewson 