The Abduction

April 14, 2014
The disappearance in Venice of 16-year-old Mia Elston, an American officer’s daughter, kick-starts Holt’s enthralling second Carnivia thriller (after 2013’s The Abomination). Videos soon appear on Carnivia.com—a cyber-Venice in which carnival masks hide identities and ethical boundaries collapse—showing Mia undergoing CIA-sanctioned “interrogation” techniques. While the kidnappers claim the “non-torture” will cease when Americans halt construction on a nearby military base, Carabiniere Capt. Kat Tapo and U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Holly Boland suspect the abductors have powerful, hidden supporters with another agenda. They enlist Daniele Barbo, Carnivia’s reclusive mastermind, to help find Mia. Holt deftly avoids prurience or gratuity while conveying the horror of walling, waterboarding, and similar practices, and Mia is refreshingly resourceful throughout her ordeal. Holt weaves her kidnapping into a larger narrative of American foreign policy during WWII, the Cold War, and post-9/11, raising troubling questions about how the U.S. defines its allies and foes, and how it treats both. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt (U.K.).

June 1, 2014
This second installment in the Carnivia trilogy (following The Abomination, 2013) returns to Venice, a setting that embodies beauty and decay. Holt also brings back Venetian carabiniere capo Kat Tapo, a woman who likes the dark side of Venice a bit too much for her own safety. The mystery centers on the kidnapping of a young American girl from a sex party during Carnivale. The girl's parents are both attached to the controversial and unpopular new U.S. military base outside Venice. The kidnappers use the Internet to show the parents exactly what kind of tortures their daughter is undergoing (readers may well feel uncomfortable at the graphic details the author presents). At the same time, a skeleton found near the American airfield proves to be that of a famous Italian Resistance officer, and other developments point toward an explosive revelation about the papacy during WWII. Holt gives us excruciating suspense in the kidnapping narrative, suspense that's heightened by also presenting the victim's shifting point of view, from a benign This is a matter of business to unraveled terror.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)