Read by Simon Prebble

At midnight on October 31, 1756, Giacomo Casanovayes, that Casanovaescaped from a Venetian prison with help from a defrocked friar named Balbi. But instead of continuing to Munich, as his memoirs record, he stopped at an inn called The Stag in the Italian village of Bolzano. There he rested, secured a loan from a friend, and resumed his old life of seduction and debauchery. Or so Sndor Mrai's account goes. Written within the framework of historical reality, this riveting novel chronicles a scoundrels downfall. Events past and present intertwine the memory of a duel over a beautiful girl, a Duke who once spared Casanovas life, an intercepted love letter, an offer the notorious lover can't refuse. Richly realized, full of psychological tension, dazzling in its period detail, this novel joins Embers in re-establishing Mra as one of the world's great literary voices

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