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My introduction to the fiction of Christine Mangan is Palace of the Drowned. Published in 2021, this is an example of a novel I paused reading to check what other books the author had written so I could add those to my reading docket. I wish there was a bell I could ring when this happens. "Fiction-General" might be a more appropriate shelf for this than "Mystery/ Suspense," but the novel is evocative, mysterious and strong enough that I kept turning the pages even without a lot of tricks and turns. Some writers need plot to keep me engaged while others can do so by the imagery they conjure and strangeness their stories generate. Mangan belongs to the latter.

The story centers on Frances Croy, a writer whose debut novel was published to great acclaim, but whose three subsequent books have received diminishing praise. Frankie, single and childless, has grown apprehensive about her future. She is upset by a harsh critique in a weekly magazine she's unfamiliar with by a writer who identified themselves only as "J.L." Frankie was seething by the time she attended a party and socked a woman in the mouth. She checked herself into a clinic but tiring of the rigamarole there, fled London for Venice, where the family of her best friend Jack own a vacant palazzo where Frankie can work on the last novel remaining on her contract.

On her way to the market to buy vangole from one of the fishermen, Frankie is approached by an enthusiastic young Brit named Gilly Larson. Gilly claims to have met Frankie before and allows her to believe that she is the daughter of one of her editors. She persists on meeting Frankie for a cup of coffee sometime and despite her best efforts, Frankie concedes. Alone in the palazzo with the exception of the family's housekeeper, Frankie hears footsteps on the second floor and assumes it to be her neighbors, though Jack has no knowledge of any tenants. Gilly sounds a few warning bells but for lack of anyone to spend time in Venice with, Frankie befriends her.

During the recital, Gilly appeared indifferent--or oblivious, rather--to the looks her presence was garnering from the men who crowded the bar on the other side. She was tall and thin and young, and that always counted for something in the world, Frankie knew. It was enough, at any rate, to ensure a casual glance, a roving eye. But this was something different, as was, it seemed, Gilly. There was the way that she spoke--loudly, not so much that it annoyed but enough so that it aroused interest--and there were the gestures that went along with her speech, wide and sweeping, without concern for the space of others around her. And behind it all, a confidence, a certainty, in the way she spoke, in the way she moved, that belied her youth. That was it, Frankie realized. She had never before met anyone so self-assured at her age--other than herself--and so she knew firsthand how it made one unique among peers, however unintentional.

Frankie stifled a smirk. It was strange to think of how differently these same attributes were viewed with age. Now, instead of confident, she was labeled stubborn. Instead of independent, she was a spinster. The most frustrating part was that she didn't feel any differently than she had at Gilly's age, only a bit less manic, a bit more calm, and yet the world insisted that she was entirely changed from her younger self.

Palace of the Drowned doesn't embrace its potential as a thriller until the 65% mark but its strength is that without crime or violence or sex, Mangan fully invested me. Venice isn't described as much as it is imbibed. The way she sets not just places or people but a rhythm of life and almost a different way of dreaming in the City of Bridges put its hooks into me. I wasn't sure what direction the novel was going to take. Though set in October 1966, with only minor changes the story could take place in virtually any decade. In a credit to its protagonist, the writing is muscular and propulsive. If it were a Golden Girl, it would be Dorothy.

Gilly. That was what she had called herself. Frankie thought it had a ring of falsity to it. As did her story about their supposed introduction. Gilly, with a hard G. It was too juvenile, too hard to believe that someone had willingly bestowed it as an actual given name. As Frankie took another sip of wine, she allowed that it wasn't the girl herself so much as the girl's recognition that had unsettled her. A reminder that while she might play at disappearing into Venice, her vanishing act could never truly be complete. There would always be someone who knew her--and who knew about what had happened at the Savoy. The two were synonymous now, intrinsically linked. No matter how much she detested the thought.

Frankie gave a small shake of her head, cursing under her breath.

If only she had never read that damned review.

In other novels, I'd be fidgeting if an author digressed into Venice or cafe society for half a book and might abandon it out of boredom, but not Palace of the Drowned. Mangan could've set the novel in a phone booth and I'd have hung in there with her. The writing is so confident that I felt myself in good hands, certain this was leading somewhere. My only criticism is that Frankie is so caustic and has so little control of her emotions that she's freaking out in public, begging why her friend Jack (a heiress, a woman) is so devoted to her. It's a minor ding in a book that is fantastic from cover to cover. I'm looking forward to reading Mangan's debut novel as well as her next.