The latest (#15) in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series that takes them to Venice. Disguises, intrigue and late night secret gondola rides as we try to find Lady Vivian Beaconsfield who was discovered missing from an asylum; all this during Mussolini and the Fascists (black shirts) rise in Italy.
Summary from Goodreads: Sussex Downs, in 1925. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are strolling across their orchard when the telephone rings: an old friend's beloved aunt has failed to return following a supervised outing from Bedlam. The Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, yet she seemed to be improving--or at least, finding a point of balance in her madness. So why did she disappear? Did she take the family's jewels with her, or did someone else? The Bedlam nurse, perhaps?
The trail leads Russell and Holmes through Bedlam's stony halls to the warm Venice lagoon, where ethereal beauty is jarred by Mussolini's Blackshirts, where the gilded Lido set may be tempting a madwoman, and where Cole Porter sits at a piano, playing with ideas...
Quotes: "...some men never got over the handicap of not being women..."
"...having an entire policy of 'Us Good, Them Bad' does little more than create a magnet for troublemakers."
"...one can talk to a man with firm principles even if one doesn't agree with him."
"If one plays on fear, takes away any remotely complicated ideas, and offers people a sense of confidence and right, one's followers will beat to death any enemy they are pointed at."
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