Jeffrey Hantover – författare

In the autumn of 1598, Abraham, a melancholy young Jewish gem merchant, seeks his fortune far from the imprisoning ghetto walls of Venice. Traveling halfway across the world, he lands in the lush and exotic Burmese kingdom of Pegu—an alien place, yet one where the jewel trader is not shunned for his faith. There is a price for his newfound freedom, however. Local custom demands that Abraham perform a duty he finds troubling and barbaric . . . and thus Mya, barely more than a girl, arrives to share his bed. Gently banishing his despair, awakening something profound within him, Mya ultimately accepts Abraham''s protection and, unexpectedly, his love. But great social and political upheaval threatens to violently transform the Peguan empire—with devastating consequences for Abraham and Mya and their dreams for the future.

Fumiani is dead...again.

In 1706, the artist Giovanni Fumiani fell to his death while painting the immense ceiling of Venice''s San Pantalon. When he turns up dead again four years later, the parish priest asks Stefano Bigio, an impoverished nobleman, to unravel the circumstances of the artist''s deaths and disappearance. So begins a journey into the corrupt underbelly of the dying Republic of Venice. Lies, murder, and the ambition of the powerful block Bigio''s way. He has no choice but to seek clues to the mystery in the magnificent art of the city to which he has paid little attention.

*

Like Raymond Chandler''s true detective, Bigio is a man of honor and character who travels down the mean byways of a secretive and corrupt city seeking the truth for the sake of the dead and the living. Blending a historical mystery with a tour of the great works of the city, The Three Deaths of Giovanni Fumiani draws a compelling picture of 18th-century Venice and the power of honor, love, and art to open eyes and change lives.