Description
When Nicholas Brink leaves New York City to join Clay Guillory in Italy, he thinks he knows what he's getting into. His more experienced boyfriend has come into a small inheritance from an eccentric bohemian artist: the windfall consists of counterfeit heirlooms as well as a share in a decrepit Venetian palazzo. Clay hopes to use Nick's connection to an antiques dealer to unload the fake silver on a brash, unsuspecting American. Clay's smarts and Nick's charm are the keys to pulling off their scheme. Nick is no naèive pawn--he takes quickly to Venice's magic and beauty and embeds himself in the city's monied social orbit. Clay, meanwhile, finds in the Floating City a chance to settle old scores. After pulling off their initial con, however, Nick decides that more money can be made in Venice to set them up for life--even if their next move involves drastically greater risks. As it turns out, nothing in Venice is as it seems, and more than one life stands in the way of their happiness.
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Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | O Magazine Best Book of the Year“A compelling take on the eternal question of how good people morph into criminals. Terrific.”—People, Book of the WeekFrom the author of The Destroyers comes an "intricately plotted and elegantly structured" (Newsday) story of intrigue and deception, set in contemporary Venice and featuring a young American couple who have set their sights on a risky con.When Nick Brink and his boyfriend Clay Guillory meet up on the Grand Canal in Venice, they have a plan in mind—and it doesn’t involve a vacation. Nick and Clay are running away from their turbulent lives in New York City, each desperate for a happier, freer future someplace else. Their method of escape? Selling a collection of counterfeit antiques to a brash, unsuspecting American living out his retirement years in a grand palazzo. With Clay’s smarts and Nick’s charm, their scheme is sure to succeed.As it turns out, tricking a millionaire out of money isn’t as easy as it seems, especially when Clay and Nick let greed get the best of them. As Nick falls under the spell of the city’s decrepit magic, Clay comes to terms with personal loss and the price of letting go of the past. Their future awaits, but it is built on disastrous deceits, and more than one life stands in the way of their dreams.A Beautiful Crime is a twisty grifter novel with a thriller running through its veins. But it is also a meditation on love, class, race, sexuality, and the legacy of bohemian culture. Tacking between Venice’s soaring aesthetic beauty and its imminent tourist-riddled collapse, Bollen delivers a "brilliantly conceived international crime story" (Good Morning America).
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