Their deception quickly leads to more serious crimes, as Clay attempts to sell an expensive property that he does not fully own and Nick murders a silver appraiser who threatened to expose their initial scheme.

It received a mixed critical reception; reviewers generally praised Bollen's depictions of Venice and the relationships between the characters but disagreed on the effectiveness of the narrative's pace.

They first met two months earlier at the memorial service of Freddy van der Haar, Clay's previous boyfriend who bequeathed to him a collection of silver antiques and his share of a Venetian palazzo nicknamed "Il Dormitorio".

After Nick and Clay learned that the antiques were forgeries, they devised a plan to settle their debts by selling the pieces to Richard West, a wealthy American expatriate who finances cultural conservation projects in Venice.

Clay is reluctant because the property partly belongs to Freddy's estranged sister Cecilia, but he eventually agrees to the scheme and flies to Paris to arrange forged documents identifying him as the sole owner.

Battista, a vocal protester against the development, tells Clay the meeting is a trap; Richard has traced Cecilia, discovered the documents are forgeries, and notified the police.

[1][2] Bollen incorporated aspects of his own life into the plot and characters; for instance, both he and Nick grew up in Ohio and like Clay, he was an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection after graduating from college.

[6] Bollen chose to feature an interracial relationship between Nick, who is white, and Clay, who is Black, to represent "two all-American guys" and to highlight diversity within the LGBT community.

[6][7] The character Freddy van der Haar, who represents the older generation of gay men living in New York, was inspired by the American photographer David Armstrong and had a more prominent role in the novel's first draft.

[3][8] In an interview with Vogue Italia, Bollen credited Toto Bergamo Rossi, the director of a cultural conservation nonprofit in Venice, with teaching him about Italy's architecture and the Italian language while he was researching for the book.

[15] Analyses of overtourism in Venice have reported negative impacts such as overcrowding, a decline in permanent residents corresponding to a rise in vacation rentals, and an increase in generated waste.

Brian Alessandro of Newsday described Bollen's casting of Nick and Clay as morally ambiguous criminals as "plucking gay characters out of the ghettos of victimhood or sainthood", and that they are ultimately forced to face the consequences of their actions.

[12] Literary critics have compared A Beautiful Crime to Patricia Highsmith's novels—particularly The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)—citing similar characteristics such as criminal protagonists and moral ambiguity.

[1][2] A reviewer for Publishers Weekly concurred, writing that while the titular crime is the focus of the plot, "the story gains its strength from its look at gay romance".

[4] In a review for The Washington Post, Dennis Drabelle questioned Bollen's optimistic portrayal of Nick's and Clay's relationship in "the dishonest and brutal world [they] inhabit" but praised the novel's suspense and its depiction of Venice.

[19] Katherine B. Weissman of Bookreporter found secondary characters such as Battista and Dulles to be more interesting than Nick and Clay, praised the level of suspense and the setting, and described Bollen's characterization of Venice as "both accurate and eloquent".