Scherzo: A Venetian Entertainment

Jim Williams' Scherzo takes us to the city of gondolas and masks in its most decadent period, to an 18th-century never-never land where dates and identities blur. Castrated as a boy to preserve his soprano voice for the church, Lodovico survives by singing, whoring, and his wits. With a visiting French philosopher going by the name of Arouet, Lodovico finds the stabbed and disembowelled body of his employer's rival Signor Molin hanging from a bridge. Lodovico's troubles do not end there. He is pursued by Jesuit conspirators and a jealous madman obsessed with a blue velvet suit Lodovico has borrowed from his gigolo friend Giacomo. As he shares in Arouet's investigation of the murder, Lodovico matches wits with the sharpest minds of his time and proves considerably more than the Watson-like narrator he at first appears. Williams has produced a decorative historical thriller and interestingly subverts the genre, with the title 'Scherzo' meaning 'joke'. The book plays with the intrinsic games of thrillers with frivolity, while also offering a touching portrait of Lodovico's personal growth amidst threats and contempt.