The Lover of No Fixed Abode

"Doyens of the Italian detective story, Fruttero and Lucentini, offer a perfect blend of the comedy of manners and the macabre…" ---Tim Parks, author of Hotel Milano

Selected by Tracy Chevalier for the WSJ as first among the five best books on Venice: "...distinctive, eccentric, seductive."

 A passionate affair set in Venice between a Roman princess searching for undervalued paintings and a mysterious tour guide. Art shenanigans become unavoidable, but the guide's true identity is the mystery that drives the story.

Their passion will last three days, long enough to be exposed to unscrupulous art dealers and scammers passing off worthless paintings as part of a famous collection. She goes to cosmopolitan parties given by Venetian social and art glitterati. Mr Silvera, a guide whose erudition and distinction sharply contrast with his beat-up suitcase and stain-spotted raincoat, drags his shabby tourists from monument to monument.

Around them are the canals and lagoons of Venice, a city which becomes a character in the novel in its own right.  

John Powers on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross – calls Lover of No Fixed Abode his favorite mystery novel of the year: "Shimmering with wit and bursting with an insider’s knowledge of Venice,  The Lover of No Fixed Abode builds to a solution so unexpected that not one person in a million will guess it.  It’s a minor classic."

" An undiscovered gem, witty, moving and enthrallingly atmospheric." Philip Gwynne Jones, author of The Venetian Legacy. 

"Sparkling and stylish, this is both a mystery and a mischievous comedy of manners which brings the city and its lagoon to life.”---CrimeTime

Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini were a well-known literary duo in Italy for several decades until Lucentini’s death (by suicide) in 2002. They co-wrote newspaper and magazine articles, and published six groundbreaking and best-selling mystery novels. Their first novel, The Sunday Woman, was made into a film in 1975 starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The Lover of No Fixed Abode, first published in 1986, is the fourth of their novels.

Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini were a well-known literary duo in Italy for several decades until Lucentini’s death (by suicide) in 2002. They co-wrote newspaper and magazine articles, and published six groundbreaking and best-selling mystery novels. Their first novel, The Sunday Woman, was made into a film in 1975 starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The Lover of No Fixed Abode, first published in 1986, is the fourth of their novels.

Gregory Dowling grew up in Bristol, UK and studied English Literature at Oxford.  He now teaches American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He published four thrillers in the 1980s and 1990s and then devoted himself to academic work and translation. He returned to fiction in 2015, with two novels set in 18th-century Venice, Ascension and The Four Horsemen.