"In The City of Dark Waters" by Jane Jakeman

Venice Italy of 1908 is where and when Jane Jakeman’s IN THE CITY OF DARK WATERS begins.  It is here a reader is introduced to Clara Casimiri, the young woman who discovers the dead body of her beloved‘Tanta’, an elderly woman of matriarchal status within the Casimiri household, the Palazzo Casimiri – one of Venice’s most enduring families of nobility.

The principessa, as ‘Tanta’ was known to those outside the family - the first in a series of deaths - was a British national from the powerful Maloney banking family - what brought Revel Callender, a British lawyer staying in Venice, squarely into the tale.  He is retained by the British consulate to informally look into the woman’s finances.

Britain’s king Edward VII has borrowed money from the Maloney family to finance his vices: women, gambling, luxuries – all his mother, Queen Victoria, fought to prevent.   Would the death of the principessa cause the Maloneys to call in their loan?  The Consulate wants Callender to find out.

The principessa’s death is overshadowed, in part, by the startling revelation that the old woman was also a hermaphrodite, the reason for her never leaving the Palazzo Casimiri.  Venice was a home for myriad superstitions and religious beliefs.  For her to brave an appearance outside the Palazzo Casimiri was to invite a threat on her life. There was a very real element in Venetian life, as Theseus Barton, the British consul, showed Callender one night, who passionately worshiped hermaphrodites – enough so to tear apart any who wandered into their sights.

Death occurs again when Count Casimiri, the head of the Casimiri household and father to Donna Clara (whom Callender has mysteriously fallen for) is discovered naked, dead in a thorn bush, apparently from a fall off the house – though Callender suspects murder. 

Are the two deaths related?  Is the murder of Auguste Remy, brother-in-law to famous French painter Claude Monet, in Venice with his wife Alice, connected here?  Monet asks Callender to make a trip to Paris and inquire on the investigation.  The French police arrested two servants from the Remy household: one confessed; one maintains his innocence.  The Italian police arrested two servants from the Casimiri household.  Neither confessed to any foul play. 

Lastly, there is the murder of the son of the bookshop owner, Libri Gozzi, where Callender purchased a Percy Byssche Shelly play, “The Cenci”.  Gozzi’s son was delivering the name plates Callender ordered for the book when he was attacked outside of Callender’s former residence.  Oddly, “The Cenci” is a story involving the murder of the head of an aristocratic family.

IN THE CITY OF DARK WATERS is told through the stories of these four deaths.  Jakeman intertwines four seemingly unrelated events into a tale of the undercurrent of society and the unwillingness of the old ways to acquiescence to the new.  Be forewarned, just as if all the secrets pervading the streets and back alleyways of your own community became known to you, what is depicted of Venetian life, behind the scenes, is not pretty.  It is some of the worst evil that man can inflict upon man.

Fortunately, nothing is done here for titillating purposes.  IN THE CITY OF DARK WATERS is well-crafted, well-told, and very well-written.  The pages are filled with intriguing characters and enticing locales just like the canals of Venice are filled with waters.  There is an elegance describing the rich history of the city (the natural ambience which brings Monet there to paint) while juxtaposing it with the debauched secrets Callender uncovers at the basis of all these deaths.  This book is its own work of ar