Death at La Fenice

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Come on, Paola, you know I’m always wrong when I try to work by intuition, when I suspect too much or I suspect too soon.” (199) Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.

Donna Leon in Venice, where her crime novels are set. Credit: Gaby Gerster/Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich Cyanide poisoning during the second-act intermission of La Traviata leaves the eminent conductor Helmut Wellauer dead, survived by a constellation of suspects from prima Flavia Petrelli (whose lesbian liaison with a wealthy American archeologist, Brett Lynch, Wellauer was threatening to expose) to director Franco Santore (furious over Wellauer's refusal to honor a bargain to find a job for Santore's protege)—and including of course Wellauer's suddenly wealthy, and much younger, widow Elizabeth. The investigating officer, Guido Brunetti, Vice-Commissario of the Venice Police, brings to his first case tact, persistence, and a useful sympathy with young women—which becomes suddenly pertinent when he unearths Wellauer's prewar involvement with a family of three star-crossed girls. Intelligent and charming Guido Brunetti, the commissioner of police in Venice (seen before in Death at La Fenice and Death in a Strange Country), continues to confront corruption in his fifth Continue reading » Leon receiving a German literature prize, the Corine, in Munich in 2003; her crime novels have been turned into a German television series. Credit: Snapper Media Brunetti’s own character is made clear to the reader throughout the course of the novel; he is a family man who is extremely good at his job, preferring to investigate motive through looking at human dynamics and understanding each suspect, rather than relying on intuition. He stresses this to his wife Paola, who enjoys choosing who she believes is the culprit at the beginning of each case, and who Brunetti says is always wrong,This month World Book Club talks to award-winning American writer Donna Leon about her celebrated novel Death at La Fenice. The well-fed, muscular body fished from a Venice canal by police Commissario Guido Brunetti's men belongs to an American soldier killed miles away from his base by an expert knife thrust. In seeking Continue reading »

The first to talk were the players in the orchestra. A second violinist leaned over to the woman next to him and asked if she had made her vacation plans. In the second row, a bassoonist told an oboist that the Benetton sales were starting next day. The people in the first tiers of boxes, who could best see the musicians, soon imitated their soft chatter. The galleries joined in, and then those in orchestra seats, as though the wealthy would be the last to give in to this sort of behavior. What a ripping first mystery, as beguiling and secretly sinister as Venice herself. Sparkling and irresistible.” –Rita Mae Brown Fasini rubbed his hands together briskly, as if the gesture would help him decide what to say. “Maestro Wellauer has been . . . ” he began, but he found no satisfactory way to finish the sentence. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Best known for her Venetian mystery series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti (The Golden Egg, etc.), Leon turns to real life with this engaging yet overstuffed essay collection on everything from Continue reading »From the first gallery, there came a burst of coughing; someone dropped a book, perhaps a purse; but the door to the corridor behind the orchestra pit remained dosed. Growing up in New Jersey, Leon was the kind of conscientious kid who finished her homework before she went out to play (as an author, she delivers manuscripts on time or even early). But as she grew older, she realised she was completely devoid of ambition. "I just wanted to have fun." After finishing university, she accompanied an old schoolfriend to Italy and found an entire nation in tune with her philosophy. "I was just blown away by it," she says. "By the food, by the coffee, by the people. By how pretty the people were. They're the most beautiful people on the planet." We don't actually witness many killings in Leon's books. By the time Brunetti arrives, the yellow tape has gone up around the crime scene. "I'm as one with Aristotle on this," Leon has said. "Do the bloody deed off-stage and then have the messenger come in and describe it."