City of Masks
A Somershill Manor Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Young Lord Somershill flees England for the wonders of Venice, where he becomes involved in a bizarre murder investigation that plunges him into the depths of this secretive medieval city.
It’s 1358, and young Oswald de Lacy, Lord Somershill, is delayed in Venice as he awaits a pilgrim ship to the Holy Land. While the city is besieged by the King of Hungary, Oswald stays at the house of an English merchant, and soon comes under the spell of this decadent and dazzling island state that sits on the edge of Europe—where East meets West.
But Oswald has secrets. He is running away from something in England—a shadow that still haunts him, no matter how much he consoles himself with the delights of Venice. When he finds a dead man at the carnival, he is dragged into a murder investigation that draws him deep into the intrigues of this paranoid, mysterious city.
From the dungeons of the Doge’s Palace to the convent-brothel of Santa Lucia, Oswald must search for a murderer in this bewildering maze of alleys and canals. When he comes up against the feared Signori di Notte, the secret police, Oswald learns that he is not the only one with something to hide. Everyone is watching (or trailing) someone else; and nobody in Venice is who they appear to be. Masks, it seems, are not only for the carnival.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Sykes's superior third Somershill Manor novel (after 2016's The Butcher Bird), Oswald de Lacy, Lord Somershill, and his mother embark on a journey to the Holy Land in 1357, but a war between Hungary and the Venetian Republic strands them for months in Venice, where they find a temporary home with an old family friend, the Englishman John Bearpark. Unfortunately, Oswald's presence in the city during the conflict arouses the suspicions of the authorities. His situation becomes even more perilous after a member of John's household is murdered, his face savagely butchered. Oswald's mother volunteers that he's had success in the past solving murders, and his host asks him to find the killer. Oswald, who has lost a lot of money gambling, agrees to sleuth for a fee large enough to cover his debt. Sykes's gamble in putting Oswald in unfamiliar terrain pays off, as she again blends a detailed immersion in the time period with a clever mystery plot line.
