I requested this book after reading the blurb and my feelings are mixed. The setting of the story, the background of the characters and the routine life in the city of Florence all started well. As the story progressed the individual plots became disjointed and in the end felt incomplete unless the author is planning to write a sequel. I enjoyed the river Arno as a character with separate chapters on her fury. I prefer stories with a conclusion or something left to the reader's choice. 3.5 stars

I enjoyed this book although there seemed to be too many characters in the story which lead to confusion at times and as the chapters were so short I had to keep stopping to find out how I was reading about. But, on the whole I sound this story interesting I remember the floods in 1966 so I was very interested I read about it. As like other reviewers I hope there is a sequel as I also would like to find out what happens next plus, I would love to read this author’s other books especially the trilogy.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

this was a really enjoyable mystery, it had an Agatha Christie feel to it and I enjoyed trying to solve it.

Pour yourself a glass of decadent Brunello di Montalcino and get comfy because you are about to enjoy a fantastic stand-alone thriller, The Forger And The Thief, by Kiwi author, Kirsten McKenzie. The tasting notes for this wine read: “Full-bodied and dense, the deeply interlocked layers of dark fruit nearly tripping over the ropey, chewy tannin structure.” Pretty much sums up this read.

McKenzie draws from the historical Arno River floods for this novel set in Florence, November 1966. It’s during this month that the rains typically turn the Arno into a raging torrent, and like the previous 8 times since 1333, the banks burst and the river floods Florence in a catastrophic manner. Reading this book brought to mind finding a sign on a Florentine street indicating the reaches of one historic flood; we couldn’t imagine what it would have been like in such a precious art-filled city. McKenzie has penned what we couldn’t imagine.
McKenzie expertly weaves the secrets hidden in her cast of five strangers together with the raging river to create an intriguing tale. The cast includes “a wife on the run, a student searching for stolen art, a cleaner who has lined more than his pockets, a policeman whose career is almost over, and a wedding guest who should never have received an invite.” Each character is on a secret mission in Florence, but they soon discover that the unpredictable Arno has other plans in mind and they are thrown off course like the ominous river. Her character’s motivations are clear and logical, but what stands out foremost is McKenzie’s unbelievable characterization. It is unparalleled. I’ve just finished reading and noted the rain lashing as the wind rattles my windows and knocks over something on my deck. I sit frozen, not wanting to meet Leo Kubin in the hallway….even with the lights on. This storm has created a perfect atmosphere for my first historical thriller, a truly magnificent masterpiece by an extremely gifted writer.

You’ll absolutely love McKenzie’s writing style. I giggled gleefully realizing that I’d found a new favourite author. You’ll become instantly absorbed in her wonderfully descriptive writing full of metaphors and similes and appreciate the frequent injections of subtle humour. I love how this woman expresses herself and I’m not alone in this thought. You MUST look up tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk and read a blog post about this book entitled ‘Altavilla, Florence One Star review’. You’ll be laughing. Guaranteed. I love to learn as I read and McKenzie fed that desire with facts about Florentine art, the Arno floods, mud angels as well as revealing a team who hunted Hitler’s art collection.

Don’t let her wicked prose nor descriptive writing trick you….it’s a thriller. Be prepared. ON SHELVES NOW.

I’m anxiously awaiting her next novel, Ithaca Bound, a historical fiction novel set in an imaginary fort along Hadrian’s wall.

The Forger and the Thief is a full-on Gothic novel with all the trademark tropes of the genre: horror, death, and romance, with a suitable side-order of religious references and morality.

The story is set in Florence in 1966. It revolves around five people, although there is a substantial supporting cast. Although they all have names, the chapters refer to them by the iconic types they represent: the Guest, the Wife, the Student, the Cleaner (more accurately the Thief) and the Policeman. All but the Student have guilty secrets in their past and even the Student, though not carrying any guilt, is living with the horror of having survived the Nazi death camps.

The characters are drawn with a fairly broad brush (though some who are painted very dark do redeem themselves at the end). That’s fine in a Gothic novel and it does mean that, although the story seems confusing at first with several parallel narratives that only slowly come to intertwine, there is none of that flipping backwards and forwards to remember who people are that can take you out of a story. You always know whether we are looking at the woman fleeing an abusive husband, or the concentration camp survivor, or the policewoman (a more significant character than the Policeman, I thought, but casual sexism was all the rage in 1966). There is a lot of fun as we begin to see the links between them.

The narrative takes place in November. The winter rains have turned the river Arno into a raging torrent, which bursts its banks and floods Florence. The River itself features as a character in the novel and the sense of its destructive power is one of the strongest things about the book.

As the river hits town, all the plans and intrigues of the characters are literally swept up in the cataclysm that will leave several of them dead. I’m certainly not going to spoil the suspense by telling you which ones.

This is not a deep and meaningful book but it does race along. Like all the best stories it leaves you wanting to know what happens next. I didn’t start with high expectations, but I was soon caught up in the narrative, putting aside some much worthier books as I rushed on to get to the end.

A fun read for a dark and stormy night.

I am very sorry since I truly was attracted by the synopsis, but The Forger and the Thief didn't work for me. Firstly, the rythme , each chapter is about one character, Ok, this seems interesting at the beginning of the book. Then, there is the expectations that the characters will meet. And then, there is a kind of "horror "show, and the true interest of it does not rev eal itself. At the end of the book, we are invited to read anotehr book about a minor character, and it is puzzling. I am fond of creativity and imagination, but it seems that I cannot undestand any of it in the book.
All opinions are mine, I received a copy from NetGalley.

An enjoyable read set in Florence in 1966. There are a lot of characters each with their own story. These stories are beautifully intertwined to create an interesting read.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

It was a bit of a challenge to keep track of the various characters and storylines at first, as each chapter was short and jumped from person to person. The characters were not very likable, with a lot of chauvinism dropped throughout the book. The forgeries, art, flood, and history made it more interesting and a quick read, but overall, just felt it was 'okay.'

In 1966 Florence was hit with the most devastating flood in centuries. Arno river just went completely mad and unleashed its rage on the people and art of the city indiscriminately. As a result 101people died and countless works of art and literature have been destroyed. This story is set during that time and features five strangers, whose journeys converge in the face of the raging waters of Arno. These people are in Florence for different reasons, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an aspiring artist looking for a family heirloom stolen during WWII, a disgraced man looking for money, an easily overlooked museum cleaner warped by family tragedy and a cop on the way out. Some local, some visiting and all will be forever changed by the flood. So lots of characters to juggle, primary and tangential, lots of motivations, many less than honorable. The river is actually the character also and as it turns out quite possibly the most engaging one. The rest…leave a lot to be desired, which is, of course, not optimal for a character driven drama. Even if you managed to get past the ugly casual chauvinism of that place and the time, there’s still the undeniable fact that most of the characters in the book are quite scummy, pretty much all male characters range from regular scummy to downright evil and the women are all victims, systematically victimized and brutalized by the men. It’s a very consistent dynamic in the novel, somewhat surprising for a woman author, especially in this day and age. I know likeable characters aren’t paramount to quality fiction, but…it helps, it really does, at least with the emotional engagement level. But here it’s more just like watching people do terrible things to each other with intent and then the river doing terrible things to them all indiscriminately. Otherwise, the historical fiction aspect is done quite nicely, the flood is rendered vividly and strikingly and there are some interesting plot twists and surprises, even a few stabs at personal redemption. So that along with the fact that it was a very quick read make this a fairly decent read. Plus I really enjoy tales of art forgeries for some reason and armchair travels, so that was fun. Second back to back uncharacteristically decent read from BooksGoSocial, go figure. Thanks Netgalley.