Belladonna

If ever a novel was conceived as a marketing exercise, it was this Count of Monte Cristo-meets-Anne Rice opus, bought by the publisher for one million dollars and launched along with its own fragrance and an aphrodisiac cream. The narrator is one Tomasino, originally from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, although when we meet him he is at a spa in Italy with his twin brother, Matteo, taking care of a beautiful young woman and her daughter. Something terrible has happened to all of them, something that awakens in each an all-consuming desire for revenge. Belladonna's plot is so loopy and twisted that it's difficult to distinguish one decade from the next. But, hey, who cares, as long as it sells some perfume. D