Posted by I was back at Laguna Libre last Saturday for a presentation of Il Ponte dei Delitti along with fellow Venice-based author Gregory Dowling, presenting his second novel in the Alvise Marangon series The Four Horsemen. The advertisement referred to two capolavori – “masterpieces” – which might have been over-egging it a bit given that that puts us in competition with The Aspern Papers, but neither of us were going to complain.
Gregory and I found very different solutions to the problem of “how do you write a detective story in Venice without making the protagonist a detective?” I made Nathan Sutherland the Honorary Consul. Gregory made Alvise Marangon a cicerone, or tour guide to the great(ish) and the good(ish) on the grand tour of the 18th century which is, frankly, a brilliant idea.
His exposition of the Venice of the period is skilfully and subtly done, as Alvise draws you into his world. He’s an engaging protagonist : an accidental hero, slightly down-at-heel, living by his wits and possessed of a dry humour without ever falling into the cliche of the “cheeky chappy”. I think he’d get on well with Nathan. A shame it could never happen. Unless, of course, I manage to sell that Doctor Who script I’ve been working on…
Until this happens, I highly recommend both The Four Horsemen and its prequel Ascension to you. And if you really want to know what we look like, well, here are some photographs…
Philip Gwynne Jones 
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