PHILIP GWYNNE JONES in Person With Paul

PHILIP GWYNNE JONES chats to Paul Burke about The Venetian Candidate (paperback now) and The Venetian Sanctuary (Hardback July), Venice, honorary consuls and Italy.

The Venetian Candidate - To tell the truth is a revolutionary act.
Battered by floods and crushed by overtourism, the city of Venice faces an uncertain future. The election of a new Mayor, therefore, has never felt more important.
As the candidates jostle for position and alliances are made and promises broken, Andrea Mazzon, a controversial writer and historian, emerges as a strong candidate.
Nathan Sutherland, meanwhile, has more important things on his mind as he investigates the case of an elderly British academic who has disappeared while researching the fate of his grandfather during the Great War. The trail leads to a remote Common-wealth war cemetery where, under the ice and snow, Nathan makes a discovery that links the terrible events of a century ago with the electoral campaign in La Serenissima. A campaign that might ultimately set the victor on the road to the Senate - and on the road to murder. . .

The Venetian Sanctuary Venice, June 2020. The city has returned to the Venetians during a merciful pause in the Covid pandemic, and few overseas visitors are to be seen. Yet Dominic Vicari, a British private investigator haunted by loss, has travelled across Europe to the tiny island of San Francesco del Deserto. The ancient monastery there, it is said, was founded by St Francis himself in the 13th century. Its population now consists of five Franciscan brothers and three pilgrims on retreat. Or, rather, two pilgrims and a dead man. Nathan Sutherland is called in when Vicari's broken body is found at the base of the campanile, his death seemingly nothing more than a terrible accident. But Nathan isn't so sure and sets out on an investigation that will reunite him with an old friend and an old adversary, and the discovery of a terrible secret hidden at the heart of the lagoon.

Philip Gwynne Jones was born in South Wales, lived and worked throughout Europe before settling in Scotland in the 1990s. He first came to Italy in 1994 working for the European Space Agency in Frascati, a job that proved to be less exciting than he had imagined. He spent twenty years in the IT industry before realising he was congenitally unsuited to it. Something, clearly, had to change. Philip and wife Caroline left their jobs, sold their flat and moved to Venice in search of a better future. They now live in Venice. He enjoys cooking, art, classical music and opera; and can occasionally be seen and heard singing bass with Cantori Veneziani and the Ensemble Vocale di Venezia.

Recommendations
The novels of Gianrico Carofiglio

Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2024

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023. An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in 2025.

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