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Summary
Summary
Donna Leon' s critically acclaimed, internationally bestselling Commissario Guido Brunetti series has attracted readers the world over with the beauty of its setting, the humanity of its characters, and its fearlessness in exploring politics, morality, and contemporary Italian culture. In the pages of Leon' s novels, the beloved conversations of the Brunetti family have drawn on topics of art and literature, but books are at the heart of this novel in a way they never have been before. One afternoon, Commissario Guido Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a round of questioning, the case seems clear: the culprit must be the man who requested the volumes, an American professor from a Kansas university. The only problem-- the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, the American professor doesn' t exist. As the investigation proceeds, the suspects multiply. And when a seemingly harmless theologian, who had spent years reading at the library turns up brutally murdered, Brunetti must question his expectations about what makes a man innocent, or guilty.
Author Notes
Donna Leon was born on September 29, 1942 in Montclair, New Jersey. She taught English literature in England, Switzerland, Iran, China, Italy and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of a Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series. Friends in High Places, a novel from the series, won the Crime Writers Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction in 2000. German Television has produced 16 Commissario Brunetti mysteries for broadcast. She was a crime reviewer for the Sunday Times. She has written the libretto for a comic opera and has set up her own opera company, Il Complesso Barocco. Her titles Jewels of Pardise, The Golden Egg, By Its Cover, Falling in Love and The Waters of Eternal Youth made The New York Times Bestseller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Think of Leon's latest Guido Brunetti novel as a love letter to her fans, many of whom are librarians. The premise involves the theft and mutilation of rare books from a private research library, and much of the action takes place in the library itself, with Brunetti inhaling the aroma of aging parchment and fondly remembering his student days. Ah, but amid all this biblio-love, there is a real crime not only the theft but also the murder of one of the library's regular patrons. As usual, the focus rests with the people involved in and on the periphery of the case. Brunetti's concern is always with individuals: how they come to do the things they do and what that says about them and about us. At one point, the police pathologist muses, You know, Guido, at times I find it difficult to believe you do the work you do. One might say the same of Leon: her books, despite employing the structure of traditional mysteries, are so very different from most crime novels, even those characterized as character-driven. For example, in one four-page scene in which Brunetti questions the brother of the victim, we see the unique sensibility Leon brings to the genre: sure she shows what a skilled interrogator her detective is, but between the lines, there is so much more: Brunetti's remarkable sensitivity to other human beings, his ability not just to see what they are feeling but to share those feelings and to internalize their melancholy. Above all, Brunetti is a careful reader, of people, of places, of situations, and he never stops at surface meanings. That's why we bookish types adore him the way we do, and why this will likely be one of his most-loved adventures. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: It's a new Leon novel, and it's set in a library. Must we go on?--Ott, Bill Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WHENEVER SOME FRESH instance of blatant corruption or rank depravity comes to light in Italy (toxic waste in agricultural Campania, political scandal in Lombardia, a proposal to build an ugly skyscraper in Mestre), Commissario Guido Brunetti, the principled protagonist of Donna Leon's uplifting Venetian mysteries, looks to his family and to the wise philosophers of ancient Rome to restore his faith in humanity. Leon tends to console herself by writing a new book. BY ITS COVER (Atlantic Monthly, $26), which finds the author in a fury over vandalism and theft in national libraries, museums and churches, appears to have been inspired by the looting of Naples's Girolamini Library by its director, a systematic sacking of thousands of rare books that came to light in 2012. ("It would make a stone weep," according to one of Brunetti's colleagues.) Although the criminal damage done at the venerable Biblioteca Merula is on a far more modest scale, it's no less heartbreaking to the library director, as well as to the commissario. It's also a great mystery. How was the damage done when the only patrons of this obscure library are innocuous scholars like Joseph Nickerson, an American academic researching maritime and Mediterranean trade history, and an ex-priest affectionately known as Tertullian for his obsessive study of the writings of the Church Fathers? The melancholy tone of the storytelling suits the narrative, especially when the ex-priest is found savagely murdered. Crimes against the elderly always distress the compassionate Brunetti, but in this extraordinary case even a murderer touches his heart. What angers him beyond endurance are the corrupt public officials, his own superiors in the police department among them, who aid and abet the crooks who make their fortunes by sacrificing their country's cultural heritage. But the scent of spring in the air draws Brunetti out of his gloomy thoughts and into the life of the city. Walking is a joy, and an official interview is just as easily conducted away from the office, in the "elegant dilapidation" of the Caffe Florian. But even a sip of spring can be poisoned by the sight of a gigantic cruise ship lumbering up the Grand Canal. TIME IS KIND to a rebel who dies young - everybody else is doomed to grow up and lose his ideals. That's the bummer memo Peter Robinson posts in CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION (Morrow, $25.99), a sobering mystery featuring his Yorkshire detective, Chief Inspector Alan Banks. A murder investigation always begins with the victim, but all we know about Gavin Miller, an impoverished recluse who came to a violent end on a derelict railway line, is that this 59-year-old man had a comprehensive collection of arty foreign films and enough Grateful Dead albums to qualify as a Dead Head. Always a graceful stylist, Robinson is also known for his meticulous procedural methods. So it takes diligent police work to turn up the information that Miller had been dismissed from a teaching position, charged with "sexual indiscretion," and more digging to establish that he was probably set up. But the origins of this sad, twisted tale ultimately reach back to the late '60s and '70s, when everyone wanted to be a rebel and no one considered the cost. THRILLER WRITERS DO love their gimmicks, and Owen Laukkanen has come up with a sickeningly original one. For reasons that don't bear close scrutiny, in his novels ordinary people with no criminal footprint take on new lives as bank robbers and kidnappers. That high concept darkens considerably in KILL FEE (Putnam, $26.95) when a heartless predator recruits shellshocked young vets and programs them to become killing machines. According to this creep's twisted logic, he's "simply a service provider filling a vacuum in the market" by catering to clients on his website, Killswitch. Laukkanen's fast-paced, no-frills style is brisk, blunt and fueled entirely by adrenaline, the better to keep us from thinking too hard. But no authorial shenanigans can disguise the schematic nature of his two crime-stoppers, a hot-wired female F.B.I. agent based in Minneapolis and a laidback male cop from St. Paul. Stunt writing makes her the hard-nosed tough guy and gives him the squeamish morality issues. But, truth to tell, those human zombies have far more personality than either of them. SOME PEOPLE READ poetry at bedtime. Others prefer seed catalogs. May I suggest instead Joyce Carol Oates's new story collection, HIGH CRIME AREA (Mysterious, $23)? These "tales of darkness and dread" won't put you to sleep, but they'll give you more interesting nightmares. Here's one, set in Detroit in 1967, about a young white teacher who's so terrified of the black male students in her evening composition class that she carries a gun. ("I am very ashamed of my fear," she admits.) Here's another, about an acclaimed literary figure who learns too late that he has cause to fear the women he habitually humiliates. And one more: about a 13-year-old girl trying to keep her mother from killing her baby brother. In a way, every story is a character study, not necessarily well rounded, but sure to focus a basilisk eye on the weak spot that reveals our own ugly impulses and makes us defenseless against the terrors of the night. . . . Sweet dreams.
Library Journal Review
The latest entry in Leon's Venice-set series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti begins with the theft of several book pages from a prestigious library and soon escalates to the discovery of further mutilation and thefts of rare books, ultimately ending in murder. Once again, Brunetti, in his deliberate, articulate manner, solves all while integrating philosophical commentary on corruption in government and the many daunting social issues pervading such a beautiful city. Bibliophiles will particularly enjoy the discussions of rare books, preservation, and archives. Brunetti devotees will savor listening in on the family's delightful conversations as members reveal their personalities and lives in everyday Venice. Once again narrated by the gifted David Colacci. Verdict This entry seemed to end a bit abruptly-are listeners meant to anxiously await the next in the series? Recommended for fans of the series and those who love Venice. ["In addition to series fans, it will appeal to readers looking for a well-plotted story matched with just enough details of life in one of the world's most beautiful locations," read the review of the Atlantic Monthly hc, LJ 3/1/14.]-Sandra C. Clariday, Tennessee Wesleyan Coll., Athens (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
