Donna Leon

PRE-ORDER THE NEXT INSTALMENT IN DONNA LEON'S COMMISSARIO BRUNETTI SERIES, A REFINER'S FIRE, NOW. AVAILABLE JULY 2024.'Donna Leon provides another delectable slice of the thoughtful policeman's life at work and at home... So Shall You Reap is as witty and wise as anything Leon has written. To read her is to restore the soul.' Mark Sanderson, The Times'Like all of Leon's novels, it ultimately feels like a glorious invigorating holiday.' Daily Express---On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a garden house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signorina Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle-random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships-that appear to have little in common. Until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humour, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.

‘As the author reaches her 9th decade [this makes] for a fascinating insight into her life and world, albeit with discretion and leaving tantalising hints at what lies beyond. One for the fans (and friends).’ Crime Time'Leon's elegant, witty prose . . . is a joy. One of the best European novelists around' Amanda CraigIn a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. From a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon has long been open to adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a "chaperone" to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market. Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel's vocal music, her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees - which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery in Earthly Remains - and her eager imagination for crime as she watches unsuspecting travelers on trains. Yet as Leon inspects the cracks in the wall of a friend's bedroom, caused by the seven-story cruise ships making their way down Venice's canals, she admits regretfully that the thrill may be gone as mass tourism renders the city less and less appealing to its longtime chronicler. Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon now confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her fierce sense of humor, Wandering Through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.'Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon, the expatriate American with the Venetian heart' Washington Post

The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. Following a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon got her first taste of the classical music and opera that would enrich her life. She also developed a yen for adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a chaperone to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market. Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel's vocal music, her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees--which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery Earthly Remains. Yet as Leon inspects the cracks in the wall of a friend's bedroom, caused by vibrations from the seven-story cruise ships making their way down Venice's canals, she admits regretfully that mass tourism has rendered the city less and less appealing to its longtime chronicler. Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon poignantly confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her sharp sense of humor, Wandering through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

En eftermiddag får kommissarie Brunetti ett upprört telefonsamtal från ett bibliotek i Venedig. Någon har stulit sidor ur flera sällsynta böcker. Efter en runda förhör verkar fallet löst: den skyldiga måste vara den som begärde ut böckerna, en professor från universitetet i Kansas. Men det finns ett problem. Det visar sig att mannen flydde från biblioteket tidigare samma dag – och efter en bakgrundskoll upptäcker man att han inte ens existerar. I takt med att utredningen fortskrider utökas antalet misstänkta. Och när en harmlös teolog hittas brutalt mördad måste Brunetti ifrågasätta allt han tidigare tyckt sig veta om skuld och oskuld.

**An Instant New York Times Bestseller**Brunetti is forced to confront the price of loyalty, to his past and in his work, as a seemingly innocent request leads him into troubling watersWhat role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It's a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in Give unto Others, Donna Leon's splendid thirty-first installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series. Brunetti is approached for a favor by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows casually, but her mother was good to Brunetti's mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately, and not as official police business. Foscarini's son-in-law, Enrico Fenzo, has alarmed his wife (her daughter) by confessing their family might be in danger because of something he's involved with. Since Fenzo is an accountant, Brunetti logically suspects the cause of danger is related to the finances of a client. Yet his clients seem benign: an optician, a restaurateur, a charity established by his father-in-law. However, when his friend's daughter's place of work is vandalized, Brunetti asks his own favors--that his colleagues Claudia Griffoni, Lorenzo Vianello, and Signorina Elettra Zorzi assist his private investigation, which soon enough turns official as they uncover the dark and Janus-faced nature of a venerable Italian institution. Exploring the wobbly line between the criminal and non-criminal, revealing previously untold elements of Brunetti's past, Give unto Others shows that the price of reciprocity can be steep.

In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon's bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti's own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murderOn a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signora Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle--random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships--that appear to have little in common, until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

Huippusuositun dekkarisarjan uusin osa näyttää tunnelmallisen Venetsian pimeän puolen. Venetsialaisessa sairaalassa kuolemaisillaan oleva nainen osoittaa viimeiset sanansa komisario Guido Brunettille, joka lupaa ottaa naisen perhettä kohdanneen tragedian tutkittavakseen. Kuolinvuoteella saatu vihje johdattaa Brunettin monimutkaisen vyyhdin keskelle. Pian selviää, että koko Venetsia saattaa olla vaarassa. Donna Leon on rakastettavien henkilöhahmojen ja vivahteikkaan kerronnan mestari, jonka uusin rikosromaani haastaa lukijan jälleen pohtimaan käsityksiään oikeudesta, kostosta ja syyllisyydestä.

I den tjugoandra delen i Donna Leons omåttligt populära Venedigserie är kommissarie Brunetti mitt uppe i ett känsligt ärende när han får ett upprört samtal från sin fru Paola. En dövstum man som har hjälpt till på kemtvätten har hittats död. Men när Paola får höra att han skulle ha överdoserat sömnmedel kan hon inte smälta förklaringen. När Brunetti undersöker saken förvånas han över hur lite man vet om den döde. Ingen känner till hans namn, han finns inte i några register, det är som om han aldrig existerat. Vid samtal med mamman får han dessutom en känsla av att hon döljer något. Brunetti inser att han måste gå vidare med fallet och en obehaglig historia börjar snart rullas upp.

'Leon...has once again, apparently effortlessly, produced a wholly absorbing read.' Sunday TelegraphIt is a luminous spring day in Venice, as Commissario Brunetti and Inspettore Vianello take a break from the Questura to come to the rescue of Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti, who has been arrested while protesting against chemical pollution of the Venetian lagoon, only to be faced by the fury of Marco's father-in-law, owner of a glass factory on the island of Murano. But it is not Marco who has uncovered the guilty secret of the polluting glass foundries of the island of Murano, nor he whose body is found dead in front of the furnaces which burn at 1400 degrees, night and day. The victim has left clues in a copy of Dante and Brunetti must descend into an inferno to discover who is burning the land and fouling the waters of the lagoon...'As usual, Leon's witty portrayal of modern Venetian life, and Brunetti's model marriage, are as entertaining as the working out of the whodunnit. A joy from start to finish.' Evening Standard'A smart and stylish, fast-paced case of intrigue and corruption, written with wit, affection and authority. . . . Impressive.' Los Angeles Times

'There is no one better than Donna Leon at showing the ripple effects of a single traumatic event . . . Leon has recast the city in her own venerable image: full of surprises and hidden beauty.' Evening StandardFifteen years ago the teenage granddaughter of the grand Contessa Lando-Continui was rescued at the last moment from drowning in the canals. But young Manuela's life was never the same again. Now aged thirty, she lives trapped in an eternal youth. The Contessa, certain that this was no accident, implores Brunetti to find the culprit she believes ruined Manuela's life. But once Brunetti starts to investigate, he finds a murky past and a dark story at its heart . . .'Brilliantly done, with a sense of place rarely matched in any fiction' The Times'A sparkling summer read.' The Tablet

PRE-ORDER THE NEXT INSTALMENT IN DONNA LEON'S COMMISSARIO BRUNETTI SERIES, A REFINER'S FIRE, NOW. AVAILABLE JULY 2024.'A splendid series . . . with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it.' The Sunday TelegraphWinner of the Suntory Mystery Fiction Grand Prize The twisted maze of Venice's canals has always been shrouded in mystery. Even the celebrated opera house, La Fenice, has seen its share of death ... but none so horrific and violent as that of world-famous conductor, Maestro Helmut Wellauer, who was poisoned during a performance of La Traviata. Even Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, used to the labyrinthine corruptions of the city, is shocked at the number of enemies Wellauer has made on his way to the top - but just how many have motive enough for murder? The beauty of Venice is crumbling. But evil is one thing that will never erode with age.'What a ripping first mystery, as beguiling and secretly sinister as Venice herself. Sparkling and irresistible.' Rita Mae Brown'Donna Leon has given fans of subtle, clever and literate mysteries something to cheer about. . . . A wonderful read.' Tony Hillerman

'Every detail on every page forms part of a succession of clues, planted with exquisite precision, to unravelling the mystery' Sunday Times In a small village at the foot of the Italian Dolomites, a grave is discovered by the owner of a deserted farmhouse, which has been untouched for decades. While the body is badly decomposed, a valuable signet ring is found close by, providing the first vital clue which will lead Commissario Brunetti right to the heart of aristocratic Venice, to a family still grieving their abducted son. 'Donna Leon can paralyse the reader with a joyful suspense' Mail on Sunday'Goes a long way to confirming Donna Leon's claim to have taken literary possession of Venice' Independent on Sunday