The Vengeance of San Gennaro

When fine art might just be the criminal underworld's most effective weapon … "Think through the suspense espionage thrillers that remain like phantoms in the brain and likely they will have been conceived by a British Isles author. We now add another master of the medium in J.J. Ward" - Grady Harp. By universal consensus, there's only one exhibition worth seeing at this year's Venice Biennale. Giuditta Cancellieri's Il Timore di Dio, six paintings of something as yet undisclosed. Don't bother buying tickets, though. A court order means no one's getting in, not even the artist's closest associates. And the city's been filling with felons. Most observers don't think that's an accident. At least one rumour suggests the paintings depict Italy's most powerful gangsters, or its politicians, in compromising positions. And there are more startling conjectures. Yet for all anyone really knows, the six canvases may be completely blank. In any case, Signorina Cancellieri is no ordinary artist. A 25-year-old AIDS-victim from one of the toughest districts of Naples, she's also closely linked to one of MI7's oldest enemies, Constantius Sopa. As the temperature rises to boiling point, MI7 agent Gavin Freedman is dispatched from London to find out just what is going on. I applaud this novel. I won't apologize for such praise primarily because it's rare in modern fiction to find an artist of old-world intellect and imagination that weaves tales like a master painter waves his brush. - Eli Stacco.