The Mirror Thief

I enjoyed this so much. It worked on every level, and as different as the three Venices were, Seay wove the stories together seamlessly into an engaging, thought-provoking whole. Recommended By Kathi K., Powells.com

A globetrotting, time-bending, wildly entertaining literary tour de force in the tradition of Cloud Atlas.

The Mirror Thief is a dazzling combination of a genre-hopping adventure, a fast-paced mystery, and literary verve. Set in three cities in three eras, The Mirror Thief calls to mind David Mitchell and Umberto Eco in its serendipitous mix of entertainment and literary mastery.

The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old world’s most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination — was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing? — the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death. One man, however — a world-weary war hero with nothing to lose — has a scheme he thinks will allow him to outwit the city’s terrifying enforcers of the edict, the ominous Council of Ten …

Meanwhile, in two other iterations of Venice — Venice Beach, California, circa 1958, and the Venice casino in Las Vegas, circa today — two other schemers launch similarly dangerous plans to get away with a secret ….

All three stories will weave together into a spell-binding tour-de-force that is impossible to put down — an old-fashioned, stay-up-all-night novel that, in the end, returns the reader to a stunning conclusion in the original Venice … and the bedazzled sense of having read a truly original and thrilling work of literary art.

"A 600-page thrill ride across three centuries and two continents … Part crime thriller and part meditation on poetry, with unexpected plot twists and references to famous figures as diverse as the French dramatist Antonin Artaud and Jay Leno…An impressive feat of imagination." BookPage

"Grandly entrancing…Shimmering with intimations of Hermann Hesse, Umberto Eco, and David Mitchell, Sheay’s house-of-mirrors novel is spectacularly accomplished and exciting."Booklist (Starred Review)

"A true delight, a big, beautiful cabinet of wonders that is by turns an ominous modern thriller, a supernatural mystery, and an enchanting historical adventure story…A splendid masterpiece, to be loved like a long-lost friend, an epic with near-universal appeal." Publishers Weekly (Starred and Boxed)

"[A] wondrous debut, a deliciously intricate, centuries-spanning tripartite tale of money and mysticism…Mr. Seay has conjured his own kind of sorcery, a sophisticated thriller that keeps the pages turning even as it teases the mind." Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"A remarkable novel—magical, sweeping, epic, and monstrous. The Mirror Thief is a tour de force of writing that defies all labels and genres: three interwoven stories that will draw you into worlds of mystery, crime, violence, and obsession. A work to be savored if you have the discipline, but more likely devoured if, like me, you simply can’t put it down, The Mirror Thief is an astonishing debut novel of immense literary depth." Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling co-author of The Monster of Florence and The Cabinet of Curiosities

MARTIN SEAY is the executive secretary of the Village of Wheeling, Illinois. This is his first novel.