Serene (Sophie Rathenau, Book 3) by David Neilson
Release date: May 10, 2019
Subgenre: Historical mystery
About Serene:
Violent moneylender Corona Mundt warned Sophie not to come back to
Venice, so she shouldn't be guarding Archduchess Isabella at the
Carnival - any more than Isabella should fall for louche, penniless,
would-be librettist Larry da Ponte. And once the two of them get
together, it’s only a matter of time before Sophie comes face to face
with her worst enemy. Serene is the third in a series of novels from the
era of Mozart and Maria Theresia.
Excerpt:
Sophie
Rathenau has traced missing Habsburg Isabella and penniless poet Larry da Ponte
to the Venice Ghetto.
Isabella fastened her
cloak at the neck. “What is there to discuss? We know what we want.”
“You can’t be an
archduchess here. We need to move. Now.”
Even as she scowled,
someone pounded the door. Three thuds. Nothing like the tentative knocks
I’d heard at Girolamo’s.
Isabella’s cheeks
were deep pits as she stared at me.
“Could be the
authorities.” I nodded at the bowl of pounce on their credenza. “Pick that up.”
Her eyes were wide
with puzzlement.
“Stand ready with it,”
I said. “Sling it when I give you the word. Larry, on my signal, open the door.”
Perching on the edge
of the table, I reached for my bag and took out my pistol. Isabella pushed
herself up. Larry shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Two more thuds, a
moment between them. That door wouldn’t resist a determined boot. Isabella held
the bowl in quivering hands. I waved her to the side and levelled my
pistol-sight at the door.
“Larry,” I said.
He paced across the
floorboards, turned the key, and eased open the door. It was pushed wide. Larry
raised his hands slowly and stepped back, out of my line of fire.
The man who came in,
his pistol trained on Larry’s waist, was almost as broad as the door. His coat
was the colour of beetroot, and his wide collar made him look as if he had no
neck.
A friend followed him
in, the queue of a soft sailor’s cap down the side of his neck. “Abbiamo fortuna, Carlo. The princess and the poet.” He grinned at
me. “And the prize.”
Carlo glanced at Larry
on his left, Isabella on his right. “Cover him, Ezio.” He switched his aim to
me. “Put the pistol down.”
A bead of sweat
trickled from Larry’s unkempt hairline. Ezio kept his gun on Larry, but his
eyes drifted back and forth between me and Carlo, and his thumb wavered on the
grip.
I set my pistol on the
table and shunted it away by the butt.
“On your feet.” Carlo’s lips didn’t move any further than they
needed. Deep bags hung under his eyes and his cheeks were pouchy. “Man wants to
talk to you.”
“Pavo Kružić?”
Carlo
shrugged. “He’s
paying, all I know. Get moving.”
I grabbed the edge of
the table as I stood, my hair waving about my face. “He’ll kill me.”
Carlo’s face was
still. “Reckon. You knew the game when you got in. Don’t see you can complain
now.”
“You ever been there
when Corona gives them to the dogs?” Ezio said. The tips of his ears stuck over
the brim of his hat. “Like to see that.”
I stamped my foot with
a strangled cry and plunged my hands into my pockets. “I won’t go!”
“Can take you dead,
too,” Carlo said. “Long as the man sees you, that’s it. Need to kill your
friends too, though.”
I looked at Isabella. “Los!”
She tossed the pounce
into Carlo’s face. Yelling and sneezing in the flurry of sand, he fired into
the floor. I pulled the trigger on my snub-nosed lady’s gun, shooting through
my skirt, and he reeled backwards with the impact.
Ezio jumped aside. I
scooped up my pistol and shot him between the eyes. The recoil caught me on one
heel, and my head cracked against the table as I fell.
In the sear of light
and pain I heard the rip of another pistol, and Isabella’s piercing scream.
Amazon
About David Neilson:
I’m Scottish, born in Glasgow, and for many years I worked as a teacher and educational marketer. Nowadays I live on the Rhine, just south of Bonn, Germany. I’d wanted to write something noir-like for years, but couldn’t settle on any main character or setting. Only when the age of Mozart and the Habsburg empress Maria Theresia occurred to me as a setting - one I feel very much at home in - did Sophie Rathenau, my main character, turn up and demand to be written about.The publication of Serene brings the series to three books, and I have another four in mind before it’s completed.
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