The Apothecary's Shop

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Description

In a medieval Venice undone by famine and excessive, orgiastic Carnival festivities, the protagonists of The Apothecary's Shop chase a dream of defeating death. The young Costanza, of the noble Grimani family, has disappeared. The family scribe, Edgardo, promises to return the girl to her family, who themselves may not be above suspicion. Doctors, apothecaries, undertakers, Eastern merchants, farmers: everyone seems to be involved in the girl's disappearance. Through Venice's only female doctor, Edgardo discovers Sabbatai's Apothecary, clues to Costanza's disappearance may lie.

Reviews

Praise for The Apothecary's Shop

"Nobody writes about Venice like Roberto Tiraboschi in The Apothecary's Shop."
--L'Unit

"[A]n extremely elegant intrigue, with cosmopolitan influences that reflect the character of the city, several unlikely plot twists, and the panache to put just enough confidence in the mind of the reader to keep the pages turning quickly."--Lauren Cerand in the Seattle Review of Books

"The pieces of this mystery allow Tiraboschi to pull us into a distant world, a medieval Venice that we are not used to imagining and that has rarely been written about."
--La Repubblica

"An extraordinary book, a gripping trip back through time to discover a different but still unique Venice and its political intrigues and mysteries, where the scents of spices and opium, drugs and poisons, love and suffering, and East and West are just some of the ingredients of a story that is impossible to forget."
--Art as a Part of Culture

Praise for Roberto Tiraboschi's The Eye Stone

"This exceptional vision of a city in the throes of metamorphosis will persist in the reader's mind long after the murder mystery is resolved...A noir situated in beautifully evoked 12-century Venice."
--Shelf Awareness

"Roberto Tiraboschi knows how to recount a city and an era that are both poisoned by intrigue and violence. His writing is powerful and evocative."
--Venerd di Repubblica

Author Bio

Roberto Tiraboschi was born in Bergamo, Italy. He is known as one of Italy's most stylish screenwriters and playwrights. His novels have enjoyed success with both critics and readers. The Eye Stone was the first of his novels to be published in English.