Description: Reviewing VAPORETTO 13, the Detroit Free Press hailed Robert Girardi "an author of substantial gifts" and The Washington Post praised him as "a skillful stylist ... his details are subtle and tantalizing". Producer Denise DiNovi (Little Women, Batman Returns) has secured film rights to VAPORETTO 13 for Warner Bros. With such momentum behind it, VAPORETTO 13 seems likely to repeat the trade paperback success of Girardi's first novel Madeleine's Ghost (now in its fourth printing).

A currency trader sent by his company to Venice to gauge the political climate and its potential effect on the lira, Jack Squire is haunted by recent events in his life. Uneasy in the foreign environment, he finds it impossible to sleep. Soon his insomnia takes him on regular midnight walks along the damp wintertime Venetian streets. In a labyrinth of alleyways and bridges, Jack meets the ethereal and perplexing Caterina.

Seeming to bear the sadness of centuries, Caterina is a woman wrapped in the past but unwilling to share any of her own history with Jack. Each night, he seeks her among the hundreds of stray cats she feeds faithfully, and over the course of a few weeks falls desperately in love with her, even though he knows almost nothing about her. Even as he learns that to uncover her secrets means losing her forever, he presses for a truth that is, paradoxically, as elusive as it is inescapable. As a chill fog hangs heavy over the deserted city, Jack finds the impossible answer that will change his life forever.

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