Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon

Unto Us a Son Is Given: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 259 pages

This is the 28th book in Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series, set in Venice, and it is another winner in a series of winners.  Among all of its other excellencies, it is so evocative of Venice that it's the next best thing to being there.  As one reviewer observed, the city itself is a major "character" in these books.

To briefly summarize the plot, I am going to paraphrase from Google Books: Count Falier urges his Venetian son-in-law Brunetti to investigate, and  intervene in, a close friend's plan to adopt a much younger man as his son. Count Falier's friend, a wealthy retired art dealer from Spain, Gonzalo Rodrâiguez de Tejada, is infatuated with the younger man, an Italian with a a title but no visible means of support for the lavish lifestyle he favors.  Under Italy's arcane inheritance laws the adoption would make the Count heir to Gonzalo's entire fortune, a prospect Gonzalo's friends (and his family in Spain) find appalling.

For his part, Brunetti wonders why the old man, a close family friend, godfather to Brunetti's wife and "Tio Gonzalo" to Brunetti's own children, can't be allowed his pleasure in peace. And yet, he finds the situation disquieting. A few weeks later, Gonzalo unexpectedly, and literally, drops dead on the street. A hitherto unknown friend from years before arrives in Venice to arrange a memorial service.

Berta Dodson avers that Gonzalo saved her life when Pinochet took power in Chile, by getting her out of the country before she could be arrested. When Berta is found strangled in her hotel room, Brunetti discovers that she had heard of Gonzalo's plans and sent him an e-mail just before he died, declaring "We are the only ones who know you cannot do this," referring to the adoption. Now with a murder to solve, Brunetti reluctantly untangles the long-hidden mystery in Gonzalo's life that ultimately led to Berta's death -- a resolution that brings him far more pain than satisfaction.

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com

The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon

The Temptation of Forgiveness: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 300 pages

The 27th novel in Leon's evocative mystery series set in contemporary Venice.

A colleague of Brunetti's wife comes to him with suspicions that her teenage son is using drugs he is getting from a dealer with access to the students at the elite private academy he attends. Brunetti is under no illusions that the police can eliminate the scourge of illegal drugs inundating Venice, but he promises to look into it. He doesn't get very far before another incident occurs. The woman's husband is found unconscious and critically injured beneath a footbridge over one of Venice's many canals, in the middle of the night. Some of his injuries suggest that he was forcibly shoved from the bridge onto the stone pavement below. The investigation of this suspicious accident leads Brunetti to a medical scam targeting elderly patients and their prescription drugs. Confronted by Brunetti, the unlikely suspect freely confesses, but pleads extenuating circumstances that give Brunetti pause.

As he meditates upon love, loyalty and the rule of law, Brunetti calls to mind Sophocles' Antigone, and how even  the impulses of a loving heart can lead to terrible and unintended consequences.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Times.

 

Earthly Remains by Donna Leon

Earthly Remains: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 308 pages

Earthly Remains is the 26th novel in Leon's long-running mystery series set in contemporary Venice. As the book opens, Brunetti snaps while questioning an irresponsible and selfish aristocrat  about the drug-induced death of a young girl at a party. The Commissario winds up in the emergency room, diagnosed with job-induced stress. He and his wife, Paola, decide that he needs to get away completely from the tensions and pressures of his job if he is to regain his equilibrium. 

Brunetti obtains a leave of absence from the Questura, and Paola arranges for him to spend several weeks at the rural villa of her wealthy Zia Costanza on Sant'Erasmo, one of the largest islands in the Venetian laguna. Brunetti plans to spend the days rowing in the laguna and the nights re-reading Pliny's Natural History.  

When Brunetti arrives on the island he is pleased to discover that the caretaker of the villa, Davide Casati, is an old friend of his father and an expert rower of a puparìn he built himself. Brunetti goes out rowing with the caretaker every day as Casati tends his bee hives, scattered on small islets in the laguna. Brunetti learns that Casati is grieving both the death of his wife and the mysterious death of his bees, and seems to feel responsible for both tragedies. Then one evening a sudden, fierce storm  blows through the laguna. The next morning, Davide's daughter Federica discovers her father never made it home the night before. Brunelli uses his influence as a police officer to call out a search of the laguna. He goes out with the patrol boats and finally they find the overturned puparìn floating just off the island where Casati's wife is buried, and then Brunelli finds Casati's body trapped under the water, entangled in the boat's anchor rope. 

The coroner rules it was an accidental death caused by the storm. But Brunetti is not sure. Could it have been suicide? Or even murder? Brunetti is convinced that Casati was consumed by guilt for something he did, when he was young and selfish, careless and irresponsible, heedless of the consequences. And by the time Casati realized his mistake, the damage was irreversible. So did Casati kill himself to expiate his guilt? Or did someone else kill Casati to prevent him from exposing the truth?

One of the best books in a brilliant series. 

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Times.

The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon

The Waters of Eternal Youth: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon ---292 pages

This is Leon's 25th Guido Brunetti mystery, and it is as beguiling as every other book in this popular series set in Venice. We begin with Guido and his wife Paola sitting through a magnficent dinner party hosted by Paola's aristocratic parents for their friend, the Contessa Lando-Continui, who is trying to woo several wealthy foreigners to contribute to her charitable foundation. Guido and Paola are there to provide "local color;" they are "real Venetians" after all. But the Countess also has another reason for including Brunetti. Elderly and increasingly frail, the Contessa wants answers to questions that have remained unanswered for too long.

Fifteen years ago, the Contessa's  then teenage granddaughter, Manuela, fell into a canal and almost drowned. She survived, but suffered irreversible brain damage, and ever since has had the mental capacity of a small child. The man who dived into the canal and pulled her to safety was an alcoholic. He told the police that he saw a man push Manuela into the water. He was the only witness, but he was drunk at the time. And the next morning, when he work up, he could not remember what he had said the night before. Manuela of course was not able to tell the police what happened.  And so the police concluded it was an accident (or perhaps a suicide attempt) and the case was closed.

The Countess however still suspects foul play was involved. She wants Brunetti to look into it quietly and see if he can find new evidence sufficient to reopen the investigation.   Brunetti agrees, reluctantly, to placate an elderly woman. Until he meets Manuela.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Booklist Online.

Click HERE to read the review from the Christian Science Monitor.

Falling in Love by Donna Leon

Falling in Love: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 264 pages

The 24th novel in Donna Leon's best selling mysteries series reunites Brunetti with opera diva Flavia Petrelli, who was featured in Leon's first mystery, Death at La Fenice (1992) and in her fifth, Aqua Alta (1996). In that first outing, Brunetti proved that Flavia, then a young and rising singer, had not poisoned a renowned German conductor at the famous Venetian opera house, Teatro La Fenice.

A few years later, Brunetti was able to clear Flavia's then lover of a charge of murder and help Flavia retain custody of her two young children during her subsequent divorce from her vengeful husband.

Now after many years in which Flavia has established herself as a star in the international world of opera, she has returned to Venice and La Fenice to sing the title role in Puccini's Tosca. Brunetti and his wife Paola have tickets for one of the first performances, and go back afterwards to renew their acquaintance with Flavia.

A few nights later she has dinner with them and Paola's parents, and Brunetti notices Flavia's extreme unease. She admits that she is upset by the relentless attentions of an anonymous admirer who has been following her across Europe, showering her with yellow roses at every performance. Then in Venice masses of flowers also appeared in her dressing room at the theater and even worse, in the hall outside the door of the apartment where she is staying.

When a young singer whom Flavia has encouraged in passing is suddenly attacked and injured on her way home from the theater, Brunetti realizes that Flavia is being stalked by someone dangerously --- perhaps murderously --- obsessed with her.

A fascinating look behind the scenes at the uneasy demands of fame and the strange relationship between celebrities and devoted fans. Plus, all the pleasures of the Venetian setting --- at one memorable point, Paola observes, "We live in Paradise, don't we?" contrasting Brunelli's robust family life with the politics and bureaucracy of his job.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers' Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read a review from the blog Books to the Ceiling.

By Its Cover by Donna Leon

By Its Cover: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 237 pages

One afternoon in early spring, Brunetti takes a call from Patrizia Fabbiani, the director of the Biblioteca Merula, a small, private library in Venice. She has just discovered that someone has razored pages of illustrations from a number of valuable rare books, and a yet unknown number of books are missing completely from the library's collection.

Brunetti goes to investigate, and is told by Dottoressa Fabbiani, and one of her assistants, Piero Sartor, that all of the damaged books had been recently requested by a visiting American scholar, a Professor Joseph Nickerson of the University of Kansas. The first damaged book was discovered after Nickerson suddenly left the building, when Sartor went to clear away and reshelve the books that he had asked to see.

Only one other person had been in the reading room that day; a former priest, Aldo Franchini, an elderly, reclusive man who came almost daily to read the Fathers of the Church in Latin. When Brunetti investigates Nickerson's credentials he is not surprised to discover that they are forged. He learns that there is a thriving black market for rare books, and the illustrations from rare books. Further inquiry reveals that similar thefts have occurred in a number of other libraries.

The library director does not want the thefts to become public because some of the books that were vandalized or stolen were donated to the library by a wealthy and eccentric Venetian contessa (who happens to be a good friend of Brunetti's mother-in-law). The director is afraid that the Contessa will withdraw her patronage and support from the library.

The investigation seems to be at a standstill when Brunetti is notified that Franchini has been found brutally murdered in his home. At first Brunetti wonders if Franchini was murdered because he was an accidental witness to the vandalism and theft at the Merula. But a conversation with the dead man's brother puts him in possession of evidence that gives a whole new twist to the case, requiring Brunelli to look at everything and everyone in a different light.

The Golden Egg by Donna Leon

The Golden Egg: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 276 pages

A new Brunetti mystery is always a treat. As an American I can only marvel at the leisurely pace of life in general and criminal investigation in particular, in modern Venice, as described in Leon's novels. Now that 60 hour work weeks have become the new normal, and everyone is connected and on call 24/7 here, Guido Brunetti's life seems idyllic: going out for coffee with colleagues, home for lunch with the family, conveyed by police launch through the canals of Venice as he pursues his investigations, getting home every evening in time to watch the sun set and share a bottle of wine with his wife.  

In this latest installment, Brunetti puts his official investigations on hold to pursue his interest in the accidental death of a forty-year-old man he has seen around his neighborhood for years without ever knowing his name. Everyone assumed  that David Cavanelli was a deaf mute and simple-minded. He lived with his mother, and one morning she found him dead in his bed. It appeared he had swallowed some of his mother's sleeping pills, mistaking the brightly colored capsules for candy. But oddly, neither the police nor the social services can find any record whatsoever of Davide Cavanelli's existence in any of their multitudinous systems. His mother isn't co-operating with their efforts.  And nobody in the tightly-knit neighborhood is willing to break the conspiracy of silence surrounding Davide --- or his mother.

The Jewels of Paradise by Donna Leon

The Jewels of Paradise: A Novel by Donna Leon --- 244 pages

Let's be clear upfront: this new book by Donna Leon is not part of her very popular mystery series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venetian Questura. It is however set in Venice, but possibly represents the first of a new series by Leon, featuring Caterina Pellegrini, an expatriate Venetian and musicologist with a doctorate in 17 th century Baroque Opera.

Caterina has been living and working in England at the University of Manchester, the only job she could find, and it has been a cold and uncongenial exile from her native Venice. Another member of the faculty, a Romanian musicologist who drowns his troubles in wine, encourages her to look for another job and get out of Manchester.

Caterina pursues a research job in Venice. Although it is temporary, and the work itself doesn't seem to make much sense to her, it offers possibilities for a musicologist trying to establish a scholarly reputation.  A lawyer has hired her to review the contents of two locked trunks, said to be the property of a 17th century Italian composer who was also a well-connected Vatican emissary to the various princedoms that then made up the German Holy Roman Empire. The Abbe Steffani was also mixed up in a notorious scandal in 1694, known to history as the Konigsmarck Affair, in which the licentious Count Konigsmarck, engaged in a intrigue with the wife of the Hanover prince who would become George I of England, disappeared in the middle of the night and was never seen again.

Now two Venetian men, descendants of Steffani's only surviving relations, are each claiming the right to inherit the contents of the trunks. A story handed down in their families insists that Steffani died in possession of a treasure, referred to as "the Jewels of Paradise." Catarina's charge is to examine the contents of the trunks to see if they contain any treasure, or clues to the whereabouts of treasure --- and also any indication of which of his relations Steffani might have designated as his heir.

But it doesn't take Caterina long to smell a rat in this rat's maze of avarice, suspicion and deceit. And unlike the poor Abbe, Caterina has no intention of allowing herself to be used by anyone.