The echoes of Patricia Highsmith to be found throughout Wilson's accomplished thriller are perhaps only to be expected from the author of an award-winning biography - which was also short-listed for the Whitbread Biography Award - of that famously chilly writer. The Italian setting of Highsmith's best-known work is one obvious similarity, as is the distinctly creepy persona of the central character, a Tom Ripley in the making.

Offered a job as amanuensis to Gordon Crace, a reclusive writer who has not left his Venetian palazzo for many years, 21-year-old Adam Thorpe sets about making himself indispensable. He cooks and cleans, and also attempts to set to rights the mess of papers that clutters Crace's study. In doing so, he discovers a letter that hints at blackmail, and confirms Adam's suspicions that there were disturbing reasons for Crace's flight from England 40 years before. He decides to investigate, in the hope of turning up material for a biography of Crace, whose Salinger-like aloofness has made him an object of fascination in the wider world. Another biography is being written, Adam learns, which may undermine his own chance of achieving literary fame. This he cannot allow...

The Venetian background of The Lying Tongue - cheekily subtitled A Death in Venice - is one of the best things about it. If there are moments when its plot creaks, these are offset by the overall brio of the performance. The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson

The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson
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