Holiday Reading

I am very, very pernickety about what I read on holidays. The book has got to feel j-u-s-t right or I really do get quite grumpy. I've made some real mistakes in the past: St Augustine's 'City of God' on a Greek beach holiday when daughter no.3 was three months old (what was I thinking of?); Nikos Kazantzakis' 'The Fratricides' which just filled me with gloom as I finished it off on the last day of a holiday filled with rain; 'The Thirteenth Apostle' which I threw across the apartment in disgust....and so it goes. I feel a bit like Des Esseints in Huysmans' 'Against Nature' neurotically trying to match aesthetic experiences. But, for me, holiday reading is part of the whole holiday experience. Thus I am wondering what to take with me to Venice. I am stricken with regret that I have already read Sally Vickers' 'Miss Garnett's Angel' as that would have been little short of perfect - well-written, but easily digested and with the correct sort of atmosphere and sense of place. As would 'The Seven Sisters' by Margaret Drabble. Or 'The End of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas - but I've read them already too, and I rarely do re-reads. I want something with a decent plot that will distract me if there's any turbulence on the flight, but not too complex. It has to be well-written.....nothing Dan Brown-ish, not pure thriller, but definitely with some intrigue. The local library hasn't turned up anything for me as yet, although the husband is happily getting on with Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' (which I am eyeing enviously). I guess I'm just going to have to head for Borders and grumpily poke at the shelves. I am emphatically not like one of my former colleagues who took with him to Crete Denniston's 'Greek Particles' and a few volumes of Livy (in the original)!!!