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An L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist | An O Magazine Best Book of the Year
From the author of The Destroyers comes an "intricately plotted and elegantly structured" (Newsday) story of intrigue and deception, set in contemporary Venice and featuring a young American couple who have set their sights on a risky con.
When Nick Brink and his boyfriend Clay Guillory meet up on the Grand Canal in Venice, they have a plan in mind—and it doesn’t involve a vacation. Nick and Clay are running away from their turbulent lives in New York City, each desperate for a happier, freer future someplace else. Their method of escape? Selling a collection of counterfeit antiques to a brash, unsuspecting American living out his retirement years in a grand palazzo. With Clay’s smarts and Nick’s charm, their scheme is sure to succeed.
As it turns out, tricking a millionaire out of money isn’t as easy as it seems, especially when Clay and Nick let greed get the best of them. As Nick falls under the spell of the city’s decrepit magic, Clay comes to terms with personal loss and the price of letting go of the past. Their future awaits, but it is built on disastrous deceits, and more than one life stands in the way of their dreams.
A Beautiful Crime is a twisty grifter novel with a thriller running through its veins. But it is also a meditation on love, class, race, sexuality, and the legacy of bohemian culture. Tacking between Venice’s soaring aesthetic beauty and its imminent tourist-riddled collapse, Bollen delivers a "brilliantly conceived international crime story" (Good Morning America).
Author: Christopher Bollen
Paperback Published 12 January 2021 416 pages
“Deliciously diabolical…What makes the crime in Bollen’s stylish new novel so beautiful is that the perps’ plan works out even better than they’d hoped—at least for a while…A skilled purveyor of suspense…Bollen’s wit sparkles on almost every page." -- Washington Post
“Bollen populates this utterly transporting novel with elegant, mysterious and complicated characters worthy of Patricia Highsmith, and he delivers hard-boiled film-noir moments amidst the sensual decadence of a Visconti film. But somehow, masterfully, while his sexy thrilling story pulls you ever forward, in the end it’s Bollen’s gorgeous writing that will leave you truly breathless. This is a first class trip to Venice with an insider at your side taking you far beyond the tourist destinations, but be careful who you’re with when you wander alongside that narrow canal and down that charming alleyway.” -- Kevin Kwan, author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy and Sex and Vanity
“Elegant.” -- New York Times Book Review