A review by depizan
The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin

2.0

I think the author may have missed his calling in food writing - the descriptions of food and cooking were mouthwatering, but the rest of the book wasn't so impressive. Scenery and setting descriptions were all right, and the main characters were likable enough, but the plot was weirdly convoluted and spent too much time happening alongside the main characters. Something that might have worked if Palewiski had seemed threatened by the mysterious murders (which, I think he actually was, but it wasn't clear enough from the story, or all his dithering around). Without that suspense, it almost felt like there were two separate plots going on for much of the book: the search for the Bellini and the extremely weird murders.

Speaking of which...either I missed something or there was never an explanation of the weird and highly theatrical murders. I mean, there was an explanation of why the people were killed, but not the how. Unless we're just supposed to go with "because Venice is theatrical"?