“My book of the month is Ben Pastor’s The Venus of Salò, the eighth in her Martin Bora series which, I must confess, is new to me. Pastor, the pseudonym of Maria Verbena Volpi, an Italian who taught in American universities, has also written on ancient Rome and pre 1914 Prague, and her Martin Bora series was launched with Lumen (2000). For those who, like me, enjoy the Furst and Kerr novels set in World War Two, this is a game-player up, both because Bora, a Wehrmacht colonel of ability, bravery, scruples and artistic interests, is depicted from within in a very skilful fashion by an accomplished novelist, who, in this novel, also writes well about sexual passion and romantic yearning, but also because the plot is at once almost breathtakingly complex and also highly satisfying. Set in Salò, Mussolini’s capital, in late 1944, the novel begins with the theft of a mesmerising Titian and develops to include murders, conflict with the Resistance, and violent rivalries within the latter and among the Germans, not least a feud within the SS, conspiracies within the Nazi élite, the Gestapo constructing a case against Bora, and rivalries within the Fascist élite. A triumph as a novel and a murder story.” The Critic
The Times Best Thrillers in May: “In the latest of Ben Pastor’s underrated series of cases for the Wehrmacht officer Martin Bora, a Titian masterpiece, a painting of Venus, goes missing in late 1944 as the reckoning nears for the Germans in Italy. Bora is summoned to the headquarters of Mussolini’s rump regime at Salò, on Lake Garda. He is charged with finding the painting and with flushing out a partisan leader in the area.There are three complications. The first is a spate of deaths locally of beautiful women with a possible link to the Venus: murders staged as suicides. The second is Bora’s growing attraction to the daughter of the picture’s owner, and the third a Gestapo investigation into Bora’s knowledge of the July bomb attempt on Hitler’s life.Pastor’s plots burn slow, but the satisfaction to be had from her (Pastor is a pseudonym for Maria Verbena Volpi) writing derives from her psychological acuity and refusal to tie ends up too neatly.” The Times
“Pastor’s Martin Bora series now reaches its eighth instalment in English although further titles remain untranslated from the original Italian. The criminally neglected American-Italian author, who translates her own books, is without a doubt a leading star of historical crime fiction and her striking novels featuring Bora, a dogged Wehrmacht officer struggling for a sense of balance during the dark years of WW2 form a fascinating landscape equal in its sense of bleakness and despair at the folly of men to Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books. It’s October 1944 and Mussolini has established the Republic of Salò off the shores of Lake Garda, a German puppet territory in the North of Italy and the final fascist stronghold against the invading Western forces. Exhausted by months on the front line fighting a losing battle, Martin Bora is called in to investigate the theft of an invaluable Titian painting, soon complicated by the unwelcome appearance of three dead bodies. Bora’s task is not made any easier by the presence and undue pressure of the Gestapo and has to tread a thin line between uncovering the truth and not putting himself in further danger and ending up facing a firing squad. Pastor balances the struggles of the individual, the art of sleuthing and the overall picture of savagery and despair of a country in ruins. Pastor, who is also an accomplished writer of historical fiction, summons the past with forensic exactitude but also a sense of quiet despair at the follies of human nature while never neglecting the minutiae of Bora’s investigation. A series you should investigate soonest had you been unaware of it.” CrimeTime
“Wartime Italy is the setting for Ben Pastor’s The Venus of Salò, out on 23 May. It’s October 1944 and three dead bodies have been found in the Republic of Salò — a German puppet state in the north of Italy and the last fascist stronghold in the country. The discovery is an added complication for Colonel Martin Bora of the Wehrmacht, who is there to investigate the theft of a precious painting of Venus by Titian. Hounded by the Gestapo, and hopelessly in love with an enigmatic in-the-flesh ‘Venus’, Bora must summon all his courage and ability, work fast to solve both mysteries, and save himself from the firing squad”. CrimeFictionLover
“Ben (Verbena) Pastor is known in Italy as ‘the queen of the historical thriller’ and though she has written excellent mysteries set Ancient Rome – she has a background in archaeology – she is best known for her long-running series featuring the melancholic but noble Wehrmacht officer Martin von Bora, a character clearly inspired by Count Claus von Stauffenberg. Bora has often been compared to Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther, but where Gunther is a police detective turned reluctant soldier, Bora is a dedicated professional soldier reluctantly forced by circumstances into being a detective or a spy.
Pastor’s Bora series began in Italy in 1999 and appeared in English in 2011 from Bitter Lemon, who have since published seven more titles, including the latest, The Venus of Salò. There are, I think, at least another four novels and a collection of short stories which have only been published in Italian, the irony of that being that Ben Pastor (who has dual Italian and American citizenship) writes in English. The sporadic publication of the English editions make it difficult to follow Martin Bora’s career chronologically which covers the period from the Spanish Civil War through the entirety of WWII, with Bora serving in Poland, France, Greece and Italy. The Venus of Salò, which was originally published in 2006, is set in late 1944 in northern Italy around Mussolini’s last stronghold of Salò on Lake Garda. Bora, severely wounded in action against Italian partisans, is reluctantly posted away from his unit to find himself investigating the theft of a valuable painting, plus murder and corruption in the chaos of a crumbling fascist regime, whilst dealing with increasingly bold partisan activity.
The Bora books all stand by themselves and one of their most important, and poignant, themes is the inevitable destruction of von Bora’s marriage and the often brittle relationships within his aristocratic family, as the patriotic (though certainly not Nazi) soldier struggles with his Catholic faith amidst the horrors of war. Venus should probably be read immediately after A Dark Song of Blood [Bitter Lemon, 2014], which is set in Rome in May 1944, although The Night of Shooting Stars [Bitter Lemon, 2020], set in Berlin in July 1944, explains why Bora is suspected of complicity in the 20th July bomb plot against Hitler, and why the SS is hot on his tail. Ben Pastor never apologises for her admiration for the professional soldier doing his patriotic duty, however unpleasant and however horrific the political system dictating that duty. She is also brilliant at showing the tragic personal cost that comes with. These are finely crafted, historically accurate novels which deal with crimes, often small, venal and very human, against the backdrop of the Second World War, the biggest crime scene of the twentieth century. ---Shots
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Francois Von Hurter
