Gestures

Lydia Burton was an editor and writer living in Toronto, and was co-author of Editing Canadian English.

Bhabra, who was born in India and educated in England, where he has lived since the age of one, has worked in international banking and travelled throughout Europe and North America. In this, his first novel, he gives the reader an exciting mystery.

The story is written as a memoir by 83-year-old Jeremy Burnham to his grandson. It begins in Venice in 1923, where Burnham has started a foreign-service career. Although it functions initially as a Bildungsroman, focusing on the experience of young Burnham, the story also manages to convey the sinister rise of fascism and the vile undercurrent of anti-Semitism in Italy during this time. In the following years, the impending tragedies of war and the Holocaust loom darkly as intrigue develops and murders take place which directly involve Burnham. In an effort to protect the innocent, he uses his diplomatic position to compromise justice by shielding the guilty.

The action resumes 20 years later when Burnham, now in his forties and British consul in Amsterdam, finds himself having to deal with unresolved mysteries from his years in Venice.