Venetian Vendetta by Merryn Allingham

Venetian Vendetta by Merryn Allingham

A terrible accident-or the murder of someone keeping dangerous secrets?

While watching the opera at La Fenice, Nancy Tremayne is shocked to see a woman fall to her death. But was it really an accident?

Newlywed Nancy is accompanying her husband, Leo, on a work trip to Venice. As she explores Italy's beautiful city on the water, she finds herself compelled to uncover the mystery of the woman's death, reluctantly helped by Leo's assistant, Archie. Together they discover a Venice as sinister as it is beautiful.

Plunging more and more deeply into the city's secrets, Nancy realises she may be forced to make a choice-the truth or her life?

Merryn Allingham was born into an army family and spent her childhood on the move. Unsurprisingly, it gave her itchy feet and in her twenties she escaped from an unloved secretarial career to work as cabin crew and see the world. The arrival of marriage, children and cats meant a more settled life in the south of England where she's lived ever since. It also gave her the opportunity to go back to 'school' and eventually teach at university.

Merryn has always loved books that bring the past to life, so when she began writing herself the novels had to be historical. She finds the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries fascinating eras to research and her first book, The Crystal Cage, had as its background the London of 1851. The Daisy's War trilogy followed, set in India and London during the 1930s and 40s.

Her latest novels explore two pivotal moments in the history of Britain. The Buttonmaker's Daughter is set in Sussex in the summer of 1914 as the First World War looms ever nearer and its sequel, The Secret of Summerhayes, forty years later in the summer of 1944 when D Day led to eventual victory in the Second World War. Along with the history, of course, there is plenty of mystery and romance to keep readers intrigued.
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