From Library Journal
Jack Squire, a currency trader based in Washington, D.C., is sent by his company to Venice for an extended assignment. There he develops an intractable case of insomnia and meets, during one of his nocturnal rambles, a beautiful and mysterious young woman. Caterina's steadfast refusal to tell Jack anything about herself, her background, or her family only piques his romantic interest. As he gradually learns the truth about Caterina, Jack finds that his life has completely changed. He discovers that he now has supernatural powers, loses his taste for worldly success, and changes careers. Girardi (The Pirate's Daughter, LJ 9/15/96) wastes a wonderfully described setting on flat characters and an inane and predictable plot. His third novel gives the impression of being too hastily written?scenes are stuck in seemingly arbitrarily, while the characters have little to do but be plot devices. Not recommended.
-?Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, SeattleCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
An American banker adrift in Venice takes up with an older woman--centuries older--whom he encounters while meandering through the city's labyrinth of back streets, in an erotically charged, dreamlike third novel from Girardi (Madeleine's Ghost, 1995; The Pirate's Daughter, 1997). Jack Squire, a foreign exchange trader in Washington, D.C., is handed a plum assignment: to study Italian politics in Venice so that his bank can make a killing on the lira after the upcoming national elections. But once he arrives, something about the city won't let him sleep, or do his job properly. In the wee hours one morning, after yet another night of insomnia, Jack meets Caterina, who's feeding a yowling horde of the famous Venetian alley cats, and he's stunned by her pale, ethereal beauty. In subsequent meetings, Caterina tells him nothing about herself, but eventually she takes him to meet some of her friends, who are every bit as mysterious as she. By day Jack bungles his reports to Washington; by night he and Caterina become lovers, so that his nocturnal adventures with her are soon all he really cares about. A disastrous business meeting with his boss in Milan seems to signal the end of his career, until he discovers that he can somehow read imminent death in the other man's eyes, leaving the boss so unnerved that he spares Jack the ax. Soon after, Caterina stops seeing him, but he manages to find the place where she feeds cats again and trail her on her way home, finally spotting her as she boards a vaporetto with all of her weird friends. Jack later reaches the vaporetto's destination--and has his worst fears about the love of his life confirmed. For as long as tale's dream state is sustained, the result is exquisite and eerie. But the last third, involving a retirement home in Arizona and a new career in Bar Harbor, Maine, ranges far from Venice--and breaks the spell. --
Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
