Antiques and women are really the only things that I'm interested in. Getting them in the right order can be a problem, because even a fake antique can be absolutely fascination - especially if it drives someone to commit murder. Antiques and women are what led me to Venice on the trail of the killer, and there my modest talents saw me blagging my way into a job as a tour guide as well as lending a hand as a sculptor. My credentials as a tour guide were as bogus as the forgery I was chiselling and it becan to feel like everywhere I turned, nothing was as it seemed. Antiques and women almost got me killed when the bullets started flying . . .

The Last Gondola brings back Urbino Macintyre, American expatriate writer, and his good friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, in another classic mystery set in the Venice of the wealthy international set amid the artists, authors and patrons of their arts. It is a dark story beginning with the mysterious disappearance of objects from the Contessa's palatial apartment. The strangest part of the thefts is that most of the objects themselves are not of any significant monetary value, and those that are are only incidentally so. Urbino, the author of several biographies, traces clues to the cave-like home of a strange, reclusive art collector. Urbino's effort to pin the thefts on this rather sinister old man or a member of his odd household leads the amateur detective into a dangerous and frightening situation.

Poems.

Never underestimate a librarian. Fifty-something Edinburgh librarian Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name. Impeccably educated and an accomplished linguist, mathematician, martial artist, and musician, Shona is selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a crucial mission in Venice. Finding the city afflicted by what appears to be a new outbreak of the plague, Shona soon encounters the Cornetto family of gondoliers. Lately, a number of their passengers have met a watery fate. Coincidence? Unlikely. She dons a mask, goes undercover and seeks inspiration in the library. But the mystery only deepens. Why do the Cornettos seem so flaky and their explanations wafer-thin, even as they proclaim their innocence? What is going on at the printworks? Shona’s powers of deduction, dissection and prowess as a swimmer are put to the test as she realises that a bitter feud is at play. Can Shona unravel the tapestry of lies and get to the truth? It’s a race against time, but it would be a mistake to underestimate a librarian.