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 Spy of Venice by Benet Brandreth

The Spy of Venice: A William Shakespeare Novel by Benet  Brandreth --- 434 pages including maps, Dramatis Personae, Scenes, A Note to the Reader, Historical Note and Acknowledgements.

Google Summary:

August, 1585. England needs its greatest hero to step forward . . .

When he is caught by his wife in one ill-advised seduction too many, young William Shakespeare flees Stratford to seek his fortune. Cast adrift in London, Will falls in with a band of players, but greater men have their eye on this talented young wordsmith. England's very survival hangs in the balance and Will finds himself dispatched to Venice on a crucial assignment.

Dazzled by the city's masques and its beauties, he little realizes the peril in which he finds himself. Catholic assassins would stop at nothing to end his mission on the point of their sharpened knives--and lurking in the shadows is a killer as clever as he is cruel.

Suspenseful, seductive, and as sharp as an assassin's blade, The Spy of Venice introduces a major new literary talent to the genre--thrilling if you've never read a word of Shakespeare and sublime if you have.

*****

This book is the first in a projected series that will imagine how a ne'er-do-well glover's son from Stratford-on-Avon transformed himself into one of the most celebrated poets and playwrights in the world, by suggesting a series of adventures in Italy taking place during the "lost years" of 1585-1592.

The second book in the series, The Assassin of Verona, is due out in 2019.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publisher's Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Journal of Books.

Click HERE to read the review from Open Letters Review.com

Click HERE to read the review from the Historical Novel Society.org.

Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King

Island of the Mad: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King - 306 pages including Author's Note and Acknwlegements

The latest installment in the series that began with The Beekeeper's Apprentice.  

Russell is asked by a friend from her college days to find out whether the friend’s aunt (a wealthy heiress) has disappeared of her own free will, has been kidnapped, or has suffered another mental breakdown.

Russell’s search for Vivian Beaconsfield leads her from Bedlam Hospital to Venice. Fortuitously, her husband Sherlock Holmes has agreed to a reconiassance mission for his brother Mycroft, who needs someone to assess the potential threat posed by the rise of the Fascists in Italy. Too many right wing politicians in England think that a strong man like Mussolini is what's needed to keep the masses under control --- and not just in Italy. 

Russell hunts for evidence of Vivian’s presence among the expatriate community drinking and carousing on the Lido, where she insinuates herself into the fast company of Elsa Maxwell. Meanwhile, Holmes gains entry into the household of the American composer Cole Porter and his wife Linda. The Porters drop millions of lira into the local economy, but their guest lists are more exclusive, focusing on people of power and influence, including the Venetian Fascists.

One of the reasons this series is so much more satisfying than other Holmes pastiches is not just Russell’s character but the way that she has absorbed Holmes’ methods and applies them with the different sensibilities of both her generation and gender in a new century.

There are two serious themes lurking beneath the mysteries here. One is the rise of fascism in 1920s Europe and how easily the fascists took control of Italy. Any similarities between that situation and xenophobic regimes today are likely intentional.

Likewise the mystery that takes Russell to Venice in the first place. Her friend’s aunt was committed to Bedlam, the psychiatric asylum in London, for years. She stayed on there voluntarily when she could have left.  Now she has disappeared. Russell realizes the real mystery is why she was committed in the first place.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.






 

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 Girl From Venice by Martin Cruz Smith

The Girl From Venice by Martin Cruz Smith   -   352 p.

It is early 1945 and Cenzo Vianello, a simple fisherman who just wants to avoid trouble and survive, retrieves an apparently dead girl floating in his lagoon. But things are never as they seem, especially in war time. In his efforts to help someone in the wrong place at the worst time, Cenzo becomes more and more deeply involved with a select circle that includes his movie star/war hero brother, a talented forger, and even a Nazi officer, who endeavor to shape the future of Italy once the war is over.

The author of Gorky Park proves here that he is a master of international suspense told through the individual stories of unforgettable characters.  

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.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore --- 326 pages

A comic mash up of Shakespeare (Othello, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear) and Edgar Allan Poe (The Cask of Amontillado) with Marco Polo and a Chinese Water Dragon thrown into the mix, along with a large dollop of ribald sexuality and Moore's distinctive snarky humor flavoring the stew.

This is a sequel of sorts to Moore's 2009 novel, Fool, although it can be read on its own. Moore may be an acquired taste but it's one that a lot of people are starting to acquire. Even if you HATED Shakespeare in high school, you will bust a gut laughing at Moore's version of events, complete with bloody ghost --- because there's ALWAYS a bloody ghost! Will would approve.

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.

Inferno by Dan Brown

Inferno by Dan Brown, 463 pages

I finally found time to read Dan Brown's new book which was released last May.  His previous book before this one was the Lost Symbol released in 2009.  I must say, as much as I anticipated reading this book, I was a little disappointed.  The plot again follows Robert Langdon, Professor at Harvard University and symbologist, on an intense search through famous locations and hidden passageways in Florence, Venice, and Istanbul.  Robert is accompanied on his scavenger hunt by Sienna Brooks.  Their quest begins pretty much at the start of the book.  Dante's Inferno contains the clues to helping Robert and Sienna find a mystery virus that Bertraud Zobrist has set off to kill  the population of the world.  Along with Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey of the World Health Organization, Robert and Sienna must find the virus before it is released into the air. This book was definitely action packed and fast paced, but there was a lot of terminology I did not get.  Though, the book did keep my interest.

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.