David M. Campbell Venetian Holiday

Venetian Holiday

David M. Campbell

Dunne, Jul 2006, $23.95

ISBN 0312349904

They met when she took his graduate class in Italian renaissance art at Columbia University. He mentored her in the art of burglary as a husband and wife team of robbers. However when "Professor" Paul Fujimori decides to retire from his profession of stealing valuable art, his wife Kate refuses as she depends on the thrill to provide her with an adrenalin rush. Instead the couple splits up.

Kate goes to Venice on her fist job without her teacher. Paul retires (and the couple separates), Kate looks for ever more challenging assignments, a search that leads her to Venice to purloin a valuable fake Mona Lisa. She enlists the help of master thief Freddy Doloreux. Her perfect plan goes awry when two bungling amateurs try to steal the same item on the same night and her partner has sold her out to an adversary, who has set it up for the Italian police to nab her or if they, as expected by her foe, fumble the arrest arrange for a hit man to kill her.

Toss away realism for a slapstick mystery, sort of mindful of Hudson Hawk meets Alfred Hitchcock with the Pink Panther in pursuit. VENETIAN HOLIDAY is a zany tale that has no boundaries as Kate goes from one escapade into another including falling in love in what is one heck of a one night stand. Don't even ask about the morning after as readers who enjoy a wild lighthearted amusing crime caper in which plausibility is irrelevant will want to follow the adventures of Kate navigating Venice.

Harriet Klausner