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Book Review of Alibi

Alibi
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By Patrick Anderson --washingtonpost.com


Former publishing executive Joseph Kanon drew me into his fourth novel with a beguiling first sentence -- "After the war, my mother took a house in Venice" -- that promised both the beauties of that great city and the intrigue of the postwar era. To a great extent, the novel keeps that promise. Kanon is an elegant, evocative writer, and his story is replete with rich glimpses of Venice: "Above all, the city was still beautiful, every turn of a corner a painting, the water a soft pastel in the early evening, before the lamps came on. Then the music started at Florian's and the boats rocked gently at the edge of the piazzetta, and it all seemed timeless, lovely, as if the war had never happened."