In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon’s bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti’s own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder

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 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.

Commissario Guido Brunetti returns with a gripping and powerful case about the murkiness of power and a test of loyalties

When two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of Venice’s campi, the son of a local hero is implicated. But when Commissario Guido Brunetti is asked by a wealthy foreigner to vet this man, Monforte, for a job, he discovers that Monforte might not be such a hero after all.

This seeming contradiction, and a brutal attack on one of Brunetti’s colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate Brunetti’s attentions. Soon, he discovers the sordid hypocrisy surrounding Monforte’s past, culminating in a fiery meeting of two gangs and a final opportunity for redemption.

A Refiner’s Fire is Donna Leon at her very best: an elegant, sophisticated storyteller whose indelible characters become richer with each book, and who constantly interrogates the ambiguity between moral and legal justice.

'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.

'Crime writing of the highest order' GUARDIAN 'Donna Leon has been giving unto us for all of the thirty years since Death at La Fenice introduced us to Brunetti' Val McDermid The gifted Venetian detective returns in his 31st case - this time, investigating the Janus-faced nature of yet another Italian institution. Brunetti will have to once again face the blurred line that runs between the criminal and the non-criminal, bending police rules, and his own character, to help an acquaintance in danger. 'Both tremendously enjoyable and deeply humane' JESSIE GREENGRASS, Costa-shortlisted author of The High House 'Leon's elegant, witty prose . . . is a joy' AMANDA CRAIG

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, and her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees--which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery Earthly Remains. Even as mass tourism takes its toll on the patience of residents, Leon's passion for Venice remains unchanged: its outrageous beauty and magic still captivate her.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.

'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.

The internationally bestselling author tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her ninth decade 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, Donna 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 and her eager imagination for crime as she watches unsuspecting travellers on trains. 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 humour, Wandering Through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

A woman’s cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entire region in Donna Leon’s haunting twenty-ninth Brunetti novel. When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. ‘They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no’, Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice’s water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta’s obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta’s secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus’s classic play The Eumenides. As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

'Leon's elegant, witty prose . . . is a joy. One of the best European novelists around' Amanda Craig 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. 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

PRAISE FOR DONNA LEON 'A splendid series . . . with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it' Sunday Telegraph 'One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever' Washington Post 'Rich entertainment' Sunday Times --- 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.

'The series that has shadowed Brunetti for three decades is an epic achievement' The Times Chosen as Star Pick in the Sunday Times Crime Club Chosen as a 'Best New Crime Novel' in the Sunday Times _____________________________________________ When two young American women are badly injured in a boating accident, joy riding in Venice's Laguna with two young Italians, Commissario Guido Brunetti's curiosity is aroused by the behaviour of the young men, who abandoned the victims after taking them to the hospital. As Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, investigate, they discover that one of the young men works for a man rumoured to be involved in more sinister night-time activities in the Laguna. To get to the bottom of the mystery, Brunetti needs to enlist the help of both the Carabinieri and the Guardia Costiera. Determining how much trust he and Griffoni can put in these unfamiliar colleagues only adds to the difficulty of solving this peculiarly horrible crime. Donna Leon's landmark thirtieth Brunetti novel is as powerful as any she has written, testing Brunetti to his limits, forcing him to listen very carefully for the truth. ______________________________________________ 'Leon's books are a joy' Guardian 'She is a truly fine novelist, period, and should be acclaimed as such.' TLS

**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 waters What 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.

Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Questura is shocked to hear that Brett Lynch, a friend since a murder case at La Fenice, has suffered a savage beating. The attack, in the beautiful palazzo home of Flavia Petrelli, reigning diva of La Scala, had come with a message: 'Don't keep that appointment with Dottor Semenzato.' Then, with the storm clouds gathering fast over the city, a man's body is found . . .

Late one night, Brunetti is called away from dinner to investigate the death of a widow in her modest apartment. Though there are some signs of a struggle, the medical examiner rules that she died of a heart attack. It seems there is nothing for Brunetti to investigate. But he can't shake the feeling that something or someone may have triggered her heart attack, that perhaps the woman was threatened. Conversations with the woman's son, her upstairs neighbor, and the nun in charge of the old-age home where she volunteered do little to satisfy Brunetti's nagging curiosity. With the help of Inspector Vianello and the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, perhaps Brunetti can get to the truth and find some measure of justice in this outstanding twentieth installment in Donna Leon's magisterial Commissario Brunetti series.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Unto Us a Son is Given, comes one of her most dark and thrilling mysteries yet. A woman's cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entire region in Donna Leon's haunting twenty-ninth Brunetti novel. When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. "They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no," Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta's obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta's secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman's accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus's classic play The Eumenides. As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Mystery lovers everywhere are addicted to Donna Leon's ever-honorable Commissario Guido Brunetti and her portrayal of Venice's beautiful but sinister byways and canals. In Willful Behavior, Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife's students. Intelligent and serious, Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather. Brunetti thinks little of it--until Claudia is found dead. Soon, another corpse and an extraordinary art collection lead Brunetti to long-buried secrets of Nazi collaboration and the exploitation of Italian Jews--secrets few in Italy want revealed.

Among their many pleasures, Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti novels have long been celebrated for their mouth-watering descriptions of food. Multicourse lunches at home with Paola and the children, snacks grabbed at a bar with a glass of wine or two, a quick sandwich during a busy day, or a working lunch at a neighborhood trattoria in the course of an investigation have all delighted Brunetti, as well as Leon's readers and reviewers. And then there's the coffee, the pastries, the wine, and the grappa. In Brunetti's Cookbook, Donna Leon's best friend and favorite cook brings to life these fabulous Venetian meals. Eggplant crostini, orrechiette with asparagus, pumpkin ravioli, roasted artichokes, baked branzino, pork ragu with porcini--these are just a few of the over ninety recipes for antipasti, primi, secondi, and dolci. The recipes are joined by excerpts from the novels, four-color illustrations, and six original essays by Donna Leon on food and life in Venice. Charming, insightful, and full of personality, they are the perfect addition to this long awaited book.

There is little violent crime in Venice, a serenely beautiful floating city of mystery and magic, history and decay. But the evil that does occasionally rear its head is the jurisdiction of Guido Brunetti, the suave, urbane vice-commissario of police and a genius at detection. Now all of his admirable abilities must come into play in the deadly affair of Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who died painfully from cyanide poisoning during an intermission at La Fenice.

But as the investigation unfolds, a chilling picture slowly begins to take shape--a detailed portrait of revenge painted with vivid strokes of hatred and shocking depravity. And the dilemma for Guido Brunetti will not be finding a murder suspect, but rather narrowing the choices down to one. . . .

Donna Leon has amassed devoted fans around the world for her atmospheric and intelligent Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries. A Sea of Troubles, the tenth book in the series, offers a rare glimpse into the scrupulous Commissario's personal life. On a beautiful spring morning on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, a small boat moored at the docks suddenly explodes, killing two local clam fishermen. When it becomes clear that the fire was deliberately set, Brunetti decides to investigate. But when he tries to dig up information about the murder, the island's tight-knit--and closemouthed--community closes ranks, forcing Brunetti to accept Signorina Elettra's offer to visit her relatives there to search for clues. On the island, Brunetti finds himself torn between his duty to solve the murders and his concerns for the Signorina's safety. Though loyal to his beloved wife, Paola, Brunetti's concern for his boss's spirited secretary may be driven by more than platonic feeling. Suspenseful, provocative, and deeply unsettling, A Sea of Troubles is an explosive and irresistible installment in Leon's marvelous series.

On a luminous spring day in Venice, Commissario Guido Brunetti and Inspector Vianello play hooky to help get Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti--an environmental activist arrested during a protest against toxic waste being dumped into the city's waters--released from prison. But on the steps of the police headquarters, they come face-to-face with Ribetti's cantankerous father-in-law, who has been overheard making threats against Ribetti. And when the body of a night watchman is at the father-in-law's glass factory next to an annotated copy of Dante's Inferno, Brunetti must find out if there is a connection between this and whoever is ruining the waters of the lagoon.

In the pages of Donna Leon's internationally bestselling Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries, the conversations of the Brunetti family have often turned to topics of art and literature, but books are at the heart of this novel in a way they never have been before. One afternoon, 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, a visiting American professor. But the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, it becomes clear that he is not who he said he was. As the investigation proceeds, the suspects multiply. And when a seemingly harmless character turns up brutally murdered, Brunetti must question his expectations about what makes a man innocent, or guilty.

When a friend of Commissario Guido Brunetti's brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work in Africa, calls on him with a request, Brunetti suspects the man has hidden motives. An American-style Christian group has begun meeting in private homes in the city, and it's possible the priest is merely wary of the competition. Nevertheless, Brunetti and his wife, Paola, decide to go undercover. But when a girl's body is found floating in a canal, Brunetti must put everything aside to investigate the secretive world her people, the gypsies, who exist on the fringes of Italian society. Originally published in 2008, Donna Leon's The Girl of His Dreams is classic Donna Leon.

In the landmark thirtieth installment of the bestselling series the New Yorker has called "an unusually potent cocktail of atmosphere and event," Guido Brunetti is forced to confront an unimaginable crime In his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. Now, in Transient Desires, the thirtieth novel in Donna Leon's masterful series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joy riding in the Laguna with two young Italians. However, Brunetti's curiosity is aroused by the behavior of the young men, who abandoned the victims after taking them to the hospital. If the injuries were the result of an accident, why did they want to avoid association with it? As Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, investigate the incident, they discover that one of the young men works for a man rumored to be involved in more sinister nighttime activities in the Laguna. To get to the bottom of what proves to be a gut-wrenching case, Brunetti needs to enlist the help of both the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Costiera. Determining how much trust he and Griffoni can put in these unfamiliar colleagues adds to the difficulty of solving a peculiarly horrible crime whose perpetrators are technologically brilliant and ruthlessly organized. Donna Leon's Transient Desires is as powerful as any novel she has written, testing Brunetti to his limits and forcing him to listen very carefully for the truth.

When the body of a man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Commissario Guido Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. With Inspector Vianello, Brunetti canvasses shoe stores, and winds up on the mainland in Mestre, outside his usual sphere, where they learn that the man had a kindly way with animals. Meanwhile, animal rights and meat consumption are quickly becoming preoccupying issues at the Venice Questura, as well as in Brunetti's home. With the help of Signorina Elettra, Brunetti and Vianello are able to identify the man and understand why someone wanted him dead. Subtle and engrossing, Leon's Beastly Things is immensely enjoyable, intriguing, and ultimately moving.