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FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW
‘A marvellous and rewarding novelist . . . He is a magician, really.’ THE SCOTSMAN
‘One of my favourite writers alive.’ REBECCA F. KUANG
Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. . .
1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat, and looks forward to the financial freedom this will afford him. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, just before the patriarch’s death, Evelyn’s plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt.
As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice for New Year at Palazzo Dioscuri – the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo – a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn’s already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?