Athens

Athens, flower of my heart! As a regular visitor to Greece over many years now, and an avid reader, I have probably got something suitable for every region and island you care to name, so if anyone is going there and wants suggestions I'd be happy to recommend.
Anyway, on the subject of Athens - and if there's one place on earth that can tear me away from a good book it has to be this beautiful city - there is not much in life to beat coming back to your apartment after a hard day's sightseeing and sitting on your balcony with views of the Acropolis and Mount Lykavittos, curled up with The Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Somoza. This is a murder mystery set in ancient Greece but with a parallel (modern) story that gradually emerges through the footnotes. It's an intriguing read on any level; just try not to spill your ouzo on the pages.

I loved that book!

I did a tagmash on Athens, novel, to see what I would come up with:

The last of the wine by Mary Renault
Creation : a novel by Gore Vidal
Gates of fire : an epic novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield
A house like a lotus by Madeleine L'Engle
The praise singer by Mary Renault
Apartment in Athens by Glenway Wescott
Tides of war : a novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War, by Steven Pressfield
Aristotle detective by Margaret Anne Doody
Nunquam a novel by Lawrence Durrell
The Athenian murders by Jose Carlos Somoza

Not sure why Nunquam is in here.

A Tagmash 6½ years later on Athens, novel:

The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
Creation by Gore Vidal
Tides of War by Steven Pressfield
The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault
The Praise Singer by Mary Renault
Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
The King Must Die by Mary Renault
The Athenian Murders by José Carlos Somoza
A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle
Apartment in Athens by Glenway Wescott
A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Deadline in Athens by Petros Markaris

The 13th novel in Philip Kerr's great series of crime novels about German cop Bernie Gunther is set in Athens in 1956 Greeks Bearing Gifts. Not my favorite of the series, but still well worth a read

I visited Athens last year for a few days. Since then I created a list of books set in modern Greece - https://www.librarything.com/list/45124/all/Greece-a-reading-list
These two memoirs are about life in Athens a few decades ago -
A Room in Athens: A Memoir by Frances Karlen Santamaria
92 Acharnon Street: a year in Athens by John Lucas