The Courtesan’s Secret: A Venice Beauties Mystery
Set in 17th-century Venice, this novel focuses on the beautiful courtesan Belladonna, born a converso named Raquel Mendoza. Although her wealth and status should protect her, Belladonna is drawn into a plot involving an envoy from Jamaica with a treasure map sought by both Spaniards and English. She seeks safety with her longtime friend Diana, a Jewish widow living in the Ghetto that Belladonna left years before.
The mystery unfolds with a cast of characters ranging from a renowned portrait artist, to the Spanish ambassador’s assassin Antonio, to Sir George Villiers, the favorite of King James I of England. Although Diana’s father is a rabbi with influential friends in the Ghetto, her brother Isaak, Belladonna’s sometime lover, has become a pirate. After an attempt on his life, the envoy vanishes, and Belladonna must find him: he’s her long-lost brother Roderigo. These characters’ conflicting desires create a suspenseful story that twists and turns to a surprising conclusion.
Besides intricacies of plot and relationships, a strength of the novel is the multilayered depiction of life in the Venetian Ghetto. To a degree it’s a place Jewish lives and beliefs can flourish, but also restricted and crowded, and residents must wear yellow badges when venturing afield. A non-observant Jew like her parents, who nonetheless were burned in the Inquisition, Belladonna brings an outsider perspective.
As this is the second of Wachsman’s Venice Beauties Mysteries, some readers may prefer to read the books in order, but that’s not essential. However, this one would have benefited from rigorous editing to cut wordiness, over-explaining, and over-reminding. Too often the writing detracts from the intrigue and momentum. But readers enticed by dazzling, enigmatic Venice in this era, with its beautiful women, romance, and conspiracies, will enjoy this book.
