Synopses & Reviews
With more than 500,000 copies of her books in print in the United States, Donna Leon continues to find new fans for her riveting Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries. In
Death and Judgment, a truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the laguna. But it will take another violent death in Venice before Brunetti and his colleagues begin to understand what is really going on.
Review
No one knows the labyrinthine world of Venice or the way favoritism and corruption shape Italian life like Leons Brunetti . . . the thoughtful Venetian cop with a love of food, an outspoken wife, and a computer-hacker secretary who plays man Friday to his detective. (
Time)
One of the best of the international crime writers is Donna Leon, and her Commissario Guido Brunetti tales set in Venice are at the apex of continental thrillers. (Rocky Mountain News)
Review
One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever (
The Washington Post)
Brunetti is the most humane sleuth since Georges SimenonÆs Inspector Maigret. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
No one knows the labyrinthine world of Venice . . . like LeonÆs Brunetti. (Time)
Review
Another captivating mystery featuring "the most humane sleuth since Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret (
The Philadelphia Inquirer)
The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti ... proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities. (The Wall Street Journal)
No one is more graceful and accomplished than Leon. (The Washington Post)
Review
" Gorgeously written . . . the seventeenth book in this superlative series restates Leon's themes with more intensity than usual."
-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"A splendid series with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it." (
The Sunday Telegraph)
"An evocative peep into the dark underworld of the beauteous city." (Time Out, London)
Review
"Stunning... Leon combines an engrossing, complex plot with an indictment of the corruption endemic in Italian society."andnbsp;andmdash;
Publishers Weekly, starred review
"One of the best of the international crime writers is Donna Leon, and her Commissario Guido Brunetti tales..."andnbsp;andmdash;Rocky Mountain News
Review
“Donna Leon’s 20th Venetian mystery featuring her compassionate police detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti, epitomizes what we treasure most about this series: a feeling for the life of a sublimely beautiful city and a sensitivity to the forces that are reshaping it. Not to mention the pleasure of being in Brunetti’s company when this shrewd but scrupulously honest man is having a crisis of ethics at the flower market or trying to pry information from a hostile nun.”
Review
“By now, with the arrival of Donna Leon’s 20th Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery, the Venetian police commissioner seems almost as much an institution as the city’s venerable buildings. … In an age of diminished civic and religious authority, the commissario—as his investigation proceeds—must make Jesuitical decisions of his own about guilt and innocence, punishment and absolution. In this finely written account, he comes down (as we know he will) on the side of the angels.”
Review
“This fine novel is Leon’s 20th mystery featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, the unparalleled Venetian police investigator who enlivens this intelligent series. … As always, Brunetti’s investigative acumen, his patience, and most of all, his profound comprehension of the human psyche enable him to bring the case to a closure of sorts. Yet the powerful conclusions does not, in fact, directly divulge the solution, and it is this haunting ambiguity that renders Drawing Conclusions Leon’s most provocative novel to date. … VERDICT: Aficionados of literary mysteries such as those written by P.D. James and Michael Dibdin will revel in this stellar book. If you read only one mystery this year, make it this one.”
Review
“Leon’s twentieth novel starring Venetian police Commissario Guido Brunetti is one of her best. … When [Brunetti] muses, the reader listens almost hypnotically, transfixed by the somehow ennobling ordinariness of this remarkable man’s humanity but also by the subtlety of his mind and his absolute refusal to succumb to the tyranny of bureaucrats and moralists. … Leon’s popularity among mystery fans has grown steadily, but over the last several years, she has become a must-read for all those who favor character-driven crime stories.”
Synopsis
From the author of The Waters of Eternal Youth, twenty-first Commissario Brunetti mystery and Donna Leon s biggest New York Times bestseller yet It s no wonder that Donna Leon s latest mystery debuted on the
New York Times bestseller list at number ten. The series s tantalizing crimes, Venetian setting, and much-loved commissario are a winning combination that continues to earn critical acclaim and a growing readership around the globe.
In Beastly Things, Leon lives up to her reputation as a writer unafraid to address the corruption underlying La Serenissima s outward beauty. When an unidentified murder victim winds up in a canal, Brunetti travels beyond his usual sphere to find the connection between the dead man and a local slaughterhouse.
"
Synopsis
The twenty-first Commissario Brunetti mystery and Donna Leon's biggest
New York Times bestseller yet.
It's no wonder that Donna Leon's latest mystery debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at number ten. The series's tantalizing crimes, Venetian setting, and much-loved commissario are a winning combination that continues to earn critical acclaim and a growing readership around the globe.
In Beastly Things, Leon lives up to her reputation as a writer unafraid to address the corruption underlying La Serenissima's outward beauty. When an unidentified murder victim winds up in a canal, Brunetti travels beyond his usual sphere to find the connection between the dead man and a local slaughterhouse.
About the Author
A New Yorker of Irish/Spanish descent, Donna Leon first went to Italy in 1965, returning regularly over the next decade or so while pursuing a career as an academic in the States and then later in Iran, China and finally Saudi Arabia. It was after a period in Saudi Arabia, which she found andlsquo;damaging physically and spirituallyandrsquo; that Donna decided to move to Venice, where she has now lived for over twenty years.
Her debut as a crime fiction writer began as a joke: talking in a dressing room in Veniceandrsquo;s opera-house La Fenice after a performance, Donna and a singer friend were vilifying a particular German conductor. From the thought andlsquo;why donandrsquo;t we kill him?andrsquo; and discussion of when, where and how, the idea for Death at La Fenice took shape, and was completed over the next four months.
Donna Leon is the crime reviewer for the London Sunday Timesand#160;and is an opera expert. She has written the libretto for a comic opera, entitled Dona Gallina. Set in a chicken coop, and making use of existing baroque music, Donna Gallina was premiered in Innsbruck. Brigitte Fassbaender, one of the great mezzo-sopranos of our time, and now head of the Landestheater in Innsbruck, agreed to come out of retirement both to direct the opera and to play the part of the witch Azuneris (whose name combines the names of the two great Verdi villainesses Azucena and Amneris).