‘Alibi’

Author:Joseph Kanon

The setting for Alibi is 1946 Venice. It’s survived the war and occupation without any physical damage. Adam Miller, who had been investigating war crimes for the American Army in Germany, comes to Venice to visit his mother. He’s suspicious of her new suitor, Gianni Maglione, a suave and aristocratic doctor who may be after his mother’s money. Adam also falls for a Claudia, a Jewish woman who suffered her own atrocities during the war, and she claims that Maglione is a war criminal. As Adam starts asking questions, he unfolds more secrets, guilt, and intrigue that most of the city’s residents would rather let lie. He find that even though Venice retained her beauty throughout the war, many of its citizens paid a heavy price.

This book was first published in 2007 and has recently been re-published in a glossy Donna Leon-type cover, which is how I came to find it in Waterstones last week. Joseph Kanon also wrote ‘The Good German’, so he has previous good form, and The Alibi doesn’t disappoint. Without giving too much away, the plot revolves around a murder and given that we know whodunnit, the fun is in finding out if the perp, or perps, get away with it.

There’s also much examination about how one should or not behave with an army of occupation breathing down your neck, and how individuals should be held to account for their actions under such circumstances. Sometimes the book struggles a bit with the weightiness of these moral debates, but the characters are very clearly defined and Joseph Kanon has a very sharp way with dialogue. Recommended.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

The Brunetti series of crime novels by Donna Leon, which are also set in Venice.

One thing you’ve learned

Life immediately after the war in an occupied country must have been very complicated. How do you move on from all of that, when the past keeps popping up uncomfortably to pull everyone back in again?

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