Rating: 
Summary: Trouble Shooters are Supposed to Help
Review: Justin Achilli gives us a look at the Giovanni portion of the vampire world. There are ghouls, vampires, crypts, new world gangsters, and old world necromancers. These subjects make the book barely worthwhile, because the main characters are stupppiiddd.Don't get me wrong. The character ideas are great. Chas is a new world gangster and a relatively unimportant Giovanni vampire thug. Isabel is an old world necromancer, old and wise to vampire politics and goings on. They're both trouble shooting the same problems for their clan elders. Its just that these two characters behave like morons throughout the book. Time after time they flush the Giovanni clan fortunes down the toilet. But whats worse is that the author might actually think his characters are clever.
Rating: 
Summary: The best of the series in showing the Clan itself
Review: Most of the books in this series have been about the overarching plotline, and just happened to have a main character or three of the Clan in question. But in CN: Giovanni, we find ourselves immersed in the workings of the Clan, from the ghouls and grunts in Vegas to the manipulators and movers in Europe. As said elsewhere, it points the focus away from the ongoing plot in order to show these workings, but it gives this book more merit as something that could stand on its own apart from the series. In fact, this is definetly the novel that could ~best~ stand apart from the series. CN: Setite was my personal favourite, but this one gave it a run for its money. As with much White Wolf fiction, writing quality falters here and there, but overall it produces a worthwhile read, and the first of the series that I finished in one sitting.
Rating:
Summary: You Kiss your vessels with that mouth?
Review: This book has an odd structure- a mini-trilogy of consecutive plots: the search for Benito Giovanni, negotiations with the Camarilla and Sabbat about control of Boston, and, finally, the rattling of some skeletons in clan Giovanni's closet. I can't say much was accomplished. Even the resolution of the "Benito thing" raised more questions than it answered. The book continued subplots from much earlier books and I had trouble remembering what they were about. But guess what? I didn't care about any of this because the book was so well written it ceased to matter. Achilli seems to be especially good at writing chilling little vignettes. His Sabbat, for example, are scarier in one paragraph than they were in the two whole books in the CLAN NOVEL series dedicated to them- and one of those (TZIMISCE) is one of the strongest installments in the series. The book presents the diversity of the Giovanni clan well- especially the differences between the Old World Giovanni with their necromancy and the New World Giovanni with their more mundane mob involvement. It takes a break from the following the larger developments in the series to focus on the story of two Giovanni- the New World mobster Chas and the Old World negotiator Isabel. I've read the previous books in the series but I think I would have been able to enjoy this even if I hadn't. The first part of the book focused on the brutal, crude and very foul-mouthed New World Giovanni. (Without the profanity it seemed like the book would have been around 100 pages shorter- but there's a reason for it.) Mafia novels don't do much for me and this gave the book a slow start. Still it managed to combine a mob story with a vampire story without seeming silly. Later, there is a look at the venerable necromancer Ambrogino at his work and some creepy glimpses at the ancient past of the Cappadocians. There's some great jungle-rotting decadence set in New Orleans as well. One of the things that the book handles best is the toll which the Giovanni flaw (they cause pain when they feed) takes on members of this clan over time as they strive to maintain their humanity. It's not quite as blatantly bleak a portrayal of vampiric existance as CLAN NOVEL: GANGREL but it's pretty disturbing perhaps because it's so subtle- at least at first.
Rating: 
Summary: Great series, poor novel.
Review: While the Clan Novel series was a very enjoyable read (especially for those familiar with the World of Darkness from White Wolf), this chapter of the series was fairly disappointing. Concentrating on shock, the novel failed to engage me, and while giving me more pieces of the puzzle, was the series' low-point. I'm fairly certain you could skip this book and still put the pieces together in Clan Novel: Nosferatu, and I'd recommend saving your money.
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