Venetian Redemption

The city of Venice is alive with celebrations for Redentore, the most spectacular festival of the year. The streets are lined with revellers eating and drinking, and boats travel along the canals into the bacino of San Marco in anticipation of the firework display.

It's going to be a night to remember, and all the more so for Nathan Sutherland and his wife Federica, who have been invited to an exclusive party in the company of the British Ambassador.

The festivities take a turn, however, when Nathan suddenly finds himself struggling for breath and is rushed to hospital. Tests show he has all the symptoms of aconite poisoning, a toxin derived from the deadly wolfsbane plant.

An unfortunate accident? Or a deliberate attempt to poison him? As Nathan investigates, he discovers many guests might just have had a motive for murder . . .

Philip Gwynne Jones was born in South Wales in 1966, and lived and worked throughout Europe before settling in Scotland in the 1990s. He first came to Italy in 1994, when he spent some time working for the European Space Agency in Frascati, a job that proved to be less exciting than he had imagined.

He spent twenty years in the IT industry before realising he was congenitally unsuited to it. Furthermore, an attempt to find a secure, well-paid job with a proper pension had resulted in him finding himself in the IT department of a large Scottish bank during the global financial crisis.

Something, clearly, had to change. And so it was that - following a conversation with a man in a pub - Philip and Caroline left their jobs, sold their flat and moved to Venice in search of a better, simpler future. They were wrong about the 'simpler' bit . . .

Philip now works as a teacher, writer and translator, and lives in Venice with Caroline. He enjoys cooking, art, classical music and opera; and can occasionally be seen and heard singing bass with Cantori Veneziani and the Ensemble Vocale di Venezia.