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Territorial Rights: Notes

From the back cover:
Venice, with its majestic palazzos and its promise of sexualintrigue, is the setting for Muriel Spark’s glittering new novel.
Robert arrives off-season at the Pensione Sofie to escape acomplicated affair and to simplify his life. But in Muriel Spark’s Venice,reality shifts and changes like the shimmering images reflected in Venetianwaters, And in the baffling maze of canals and winding streets, Robert is drawninto a mystery as intricate and ingenious as any Muriel Spark has devised.

Set at the time of publication (late 1970s), TerritorialRights was written during the period that Spark lived in Italy. The novelcontains all the classic Muriel Spark elements: strange characters, murder,blackmail, and a slightly bizarre, highly-charged atmosphere. It’s a novelabout the complications that can occur with deception—because everyone in thisbook has something to hide. But the characters are almost archetypes, servingas vehicles for the larger story. It’s just as comical as some of her otherbooks, and I’m really enjoying this novel. In this case, there’s a possiblekidnapping and a 30-year-old mystery dating back to WWII.

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