The Venice Girl, Smith - C

                                               After all these years, Martin Cruz Smith is still at it, and this time the setting is Venice in the spring of 1945. Cenzo is a fisherman who pulls an apparently dead young woman out of the lagoon one night. However, Giulia is alive, Jewish and on the run. At his dock, an SS officer tries to grab her and Cenzo skulls the officer, disposes of his body, and all of a sudden, is hip deep in the war and managing a big problem.  The plot moves to beyond unbelievable when the local fascists send Cenzo to Salo, capital of whatever is left of Mussolini's world. The few insights on the last week in Salo are the only saving graces of this novel.