So Shall You Reap

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For those who know Venice, or want to, Brunetti is a well-versed escort to the nooks, crannies, moods, and idiosyncrasies of what residents call La Serenissima, the Serene One . . . Richly atmospheric, [Leon] introduces you to the Venice insiders know. (USA Today)

The annual release of the latest Donna Leon mystery featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti is always a treat I relish. There is no better literary tour guide to Venice and the surrounding landscape than Leon and each entry in this series provides complex, memorable characters and storylines that touch the moral center of the human spirit. But the foreign country that changed Ms. Leon’s life, and the one that most readers will be interested to hear her experience of and her opinions on, is Italy. She got her first taste of the place in the late ’60s, when a former university classmate asked her to accompany her on a trip. She fell in love with the people and la dolce vitaduring her stay and finally settled in Venice in the early ’80s. Many chapters are mere vignettes, and key topics are overlooked: Ms. Leon shares a story about her enterprising scheme selling tomatoes during her school vacations but says nothing about her college years; she gushes about her “greatest joy” of opera and admits to being “an American Handel junkie” but discloses next to nothing about the nuts and bolts of her writing.

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The firebrands of social equality and universal justice had moved on to a different world,” Brunetti thinks as he considers the lucrative careers pursued by once-radical friends from his student days, much as his father had once predicted (p. 147). Do you agree with this observation that young radicals eventually age into centrists or even conservatives? Why or why not? You become so wrapped up in these compelling characters . . . Each one is better than the last.”— Louise Erdrich, PBS NewsHour

The story begins when Alvise is detained at a gay rights demonstration in Treviso for resisting arrest. It gives Paola a good laugh that Guido has never realized after years of working with him that Alvise is gay. For those who know Venice, or want to, Brunetti is a well-versed escort to the nooks, crannies, moods, and idiosyncrasies of what residents call La Serenissima, the Serene One . . . Richly atmospheric, [Leon] introduces you to the Venice insiders know.”— USA TodayExpertly plotted police procedurals, Ms. Leon’s Brunetti books are all the more special for redirecting readers from the postcard-ready canal scenes and into the grittier, less picturesque byways of La Serenissima, and for grappling with pertinent social, political, historical and, in recent years, ecological issues that affect Italy in general and Venice in particular. From a Wall Street Journal review by Malcolm Forbes headlined “”Wandering Through Life’ Review: Donna Leon’s Journey”:

The latest Donna Leon book is titled Trace Elements, published in early 2020. Currently, there is a Donan Leon TV series adapted from her Guido Brunetti books to the German television, title Commissario Brunetti. The TV show, produced in 2000 by ARD, has also been aired in Spain and Finland. In fact, close to 20 novels have been produced as broadcast dramas by German television.

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I do not typically read memoirs. However, I LOVE Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti police procedurals/mysteries set in Venice. I have read all thirty two of them. Naturally, I just had to read her memoir. Even if you have never read any of her books, you may well enjoy these slices of Leon’s life, specific to her, but also many that can be generalized to others. Besides writing books, the author loves Baroque music, especially Handel. She is a patron of the orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro. She also holds locally crime writing masterclasses in Switzerland, which are usually quite soon fully booked. Praise for Donna Leon