In 2012, former IT professional Philip Gwynne Jones packed up his life and moved to Venice to escape a financial crisis that threatened his job - 13 years later, he's still there.

Who wouldn’t be intrigued by being given the chance to read about thrills and thuggery in La Serenissima? So I took the bait and bought a copy of the book by Philip Gwynne Jones.

On the night of the worst flooding in Venice for 50 years, the body of a young British art historian is found floating in an antique bookshop on the Street of the Assassins. Nathan Sutherland ...