The Girl from Venice

PRAISE FOR MARTIN CRUZ SMITH:

"Martin Cruz Smith is a master of the international thriller." --The New York Times

"A true storyteller. . . . Think Joseph Conrad on amphetamines." --Newsweek
"Evocative . . . Smith conjures the time and place with a generous dose of what the novelist Evan Connell called 'luminous details.' . . . The Girl from Venice's vivid treatments of a timeless trade and certain little-known aspects of World War II make it well worth your time." --Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post
"Smith is that uncommon phenomenon: a popular and well-regarded crime novelist who is also a writer of real distinction. His prose is clear, precise, and unobtrusively elegant, and his sense of character is unerring." --The Washington Post

"With the recent death of the reigning master of the suspense novel, Elmore Leonard, to whom do we turn in the hopes of a masterly glide through dire straits in the dark side of life, with pitch-perfect dialogue, intriguing characters, and a plot with punchy turns and a satisfying twist? My candidate would be California writer Martin Cruz Smith." --Alan Cheuse, The Dallas Morning News
"You think you've read every permutation of a World War II novel possible--then along comes a Venetian fisherman and his unlikely first mate, a beautiful Jewish teenaged girl on the run from the last few Nazis occupying Italy. . . . Suspense, romance, spying, action--this novel has a little bit of everything, and it works. Cruz Smith is a master of quick scene changes . . . [who] has chosen, in The Girl from Venice, to put aside his usual spy stories for a straightforward wartime chase-cum-romance, a slice of La Serenissima life so perfectly researched that details melt into action like the local goby fish into risotto." --Bethanne Patrick, NPR