2,225: By Its Cover by Donna Leon

When I come across a crime series I enjoy, there’s a certain pattern to my reading.  At first, I devour instalments one after another until I’ve eventually caught up with the author.  After that, there’s usually one or possibly two instalments that are due out shortly after I’ve caught up and then, finally, I slip into a tormented pattern of longing for the next one to be published and cursing any diversion by the author into writing books that don’t form part of the series.

And so it has been for a long time with Donna Leon’s Brunetti series.  I eagerly anticipate each new book and pre-order them so as to get my grubby mitts on them as soon as possible.  Recently, however, I’ve noticed a certain unevenness in the series, with some episodes seeming a little lacklustre.

I would guess that part of this is down to the sheer longevity of the series.  With a central cast that rarely changes (the rise in prominence of officers Pucetti and Griffoni being the only additions of recent note), there’s a limit as to how fresh the books can be and, if truth be told, I do appreciate the familiarity that long acquaintance brings.  One of Leon’s hallmarks is the centrality of Brunetti’s family life to the stories and so the regular passages set around the dinner table or in their living room are very much like settling into an old pair of slippers - comforting and to be luxuriated in.

The other “Leon factor” if you like is her concern with the social and political issues Italy, and Venice in particular, is faced with.  At her best, Leon brings these out and debates them by means of plot elements, subtle dialogue and background cameo scenes.  At her worst (and, I suspect, most enraged) they end up being either a little bit ranty or thumpingly didactic.

By Its Cover, the 23^rd Brunetti novel, sits somewhere towards the better end of the Leon range.  At its beginning, Comissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice police is contemplating the onset of spring whilst dealing with an altercation between two water tax drivers.  He is interrupted by a phone call requesting his presence at the Biblioteca Merula, where it soon becomes clear that a thief has been at work, stealing valuable works and even cutting pages out of other rare volumes.  Suspicion soon falls on an American researcher who has been working at the library, although Brunetti is also intrigued by the library’s other regular, a former priest known as Tertullian for his apparent love for the writings of the fathers of the Church.

Inspired by the ongoing Italian problem with art theft and by the massive theft of books from the Girolamini Library in Naples by its own director in 2012, By Its Cover is likely to engage any book lover, as well as crime fiction fans.  Leon uses the novel to explore not only her customary themes of Italian bureaucracy and institutional corruption but more esoteric issues that will probably only engage book lovers, such as whether books are valuable for themselves as objects or for the texts that they carry.  For the record, I, like Guido, am on Team Text - although a particular book may have an extrinsic value through its production or its historicity, ultimately, the book only exists as a means to transport the text to the reader.

Over the years, Leon’s books have moved from pure detective stories to explorations of social issues using the form of the detective story as the structure within which to do so.  She has also given the city of Venice itself and the personal lives of Brunetti and his circle increased prominence to the extent that there is no murder (and, like it or not, murder is the overwhelming raison d’etre of almost all crime fiction) until halfway through the book.

It’s mainly for this reason that I would recommend new readers to begin at the beginning with Death at La Fenice and carry on through.  The existing fan can be assured that this is an excellent entry in the Brunetti series, albeit one with a lightly abrupt and unusually loose ending.  There are few detectives with whom I enjoy spending time more and I must now endure the long wait for Leon’s next book.

2,459: The Golden Egg by Donna Leon

If you are a more than occasional reader of this blog, you will be well aware that I am a big fan of Donna Leon and her Commissario Brunetti detective series, set in Venice.  I have, however, previously commented that I’ve found some of her more recent instalments to be disappointing as she has let her focus on big picture social issues cloud the actual storytelling.

I’m pleased to report that, having taken time off to write a non-Brunetti novel. The Golden Egg, the 22^nd Brunetti novel, is a return to form.  At this point, I’d also like to express my thanks to Grove/Atlantic for allowing me access to the book via Netgalley.

In The Golden Egg, Brunetti undertakes two unconnected investigations - an official one, at the behest of his awful boss, Patta, into what appears to be a minor infraction by the daughter-in-law of the mayor and an unofficial one, at the behest of his enchanting wife, Paola, into the death of a deaf, mentally-handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners.

Whereas the political investigation turns out, like so much else in the Venetian and Italian body politic, to be a familiar tale of corruption and nepotism, Brunetti’s unofficial investigation into Davide Cavanella is much more interesting, as Brunetti soon finds that there is no public or official record of Davide anywhere.  Suspicious?  Yes.  But for Brunetti, sadness is the overwhelming emotion as he contrasts the lonely and isolated world of Davide with the conversation and love-filled lives of Rafael and Chiara, his children.

I suspect that, for some crime fiction fans, Leon’s writings can be frustrating as she moves across different sub-genres, sometimes offering a classic police procedural, at others a more philosophically minded story and at others a story that is almost tangentially a crime novel.  They work for me as I feel very drawn to Brunetti’s fundamental decency and humanity.  Working in a decaying political and moral environment that is reflected in the physical decay of Venice, he and his close colleagues, Vianello and the lovely Signorina Elettra, maintain their honesty in the face of cover-up and deceit. 

The Golden Egg is a good example of Leon’s best work, in my view.  It’s reflective, concerned with ideas of language and justice and infused with a warmth that comes to the fore in Leon’s descriptions of Brunetti’s home life, the glorious meals cooked by Paola and their love of, respectively, Latin classics and English literature.  Having said that, I do have to concede that other reviewers are less enamoured of the reflective side of Leon and prefer the more traditional instalments in the series.

In the end, Brunetti tracks down the truth behind Davide’s life and death, although, as with many of the Brunetti novels, there is no comfortable ending with an arrest and punishment.  The solution of the crime is all and the reader can only hope that the perpetrator’s circumstances provide sufficient punishment.

To summarise Brunetti and The Golden Egg, I can do no better than quote Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times:

“Meanwhile, the commissario carries on as he always does, solving one crime at a time, reversing one injustice after another, then heading home to drink a little wine, read a little Tacitus and play another little language game with his family.”

And, if there is any justice for readers like me, long may he continue to do so.

Other blog reviews of The Golden Egg include:  The Neff Review, Bedlam Farm, Angela Savage and stillnotfussed.

2,558: A Question of Belief by Donna Leon

Donna Leon is an American teacher who lives in Venice and has, over the past 20 years or so, written 20 crime novels set in the city, as well as a book about animals in Handel’s operas.

Leon’s hero is Commissario Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian policeman, who is ably assisted by his friend, Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello and the formidably glamorous Signorina Elettra, and generally hindered by his boss, the slippery Vice-Questore Patta, and his brutish side-kick, Lieutenant Scarpa.

The Brunetti novels are fairly formulaic, although none the worse for that.  There will, of course, be at least one murder, which Patta will either not want Brunetti to be assigned to or will want cleared up or brushed under the carpet very quickly for political or personal reasons.  There will generally be a theme of corruption, either the endemic corruption of the Italian state system or more specific business or personal shadiness.  The decaying splendour of Venice and life in that unique city always features heavily.

A Question of Belief is the 19^th instalment in the series.  It is a hot and sweltering August in La Serenissima.  Brunetti and his family are planning their summer getaway to the mountains, with Brunetti delighting in the fact that he will need to take a sweater with him.  Before he goes, however, Vianello asks him for some help dealing with his aunt, a usually sensible woman who has begun to give large sums of money to a fortune teller of dubious morals.  At the same time, an acquaintance comes to Brunetti with concerns about the conduct of a judge in the Venetian court and one of the senior clerks of the court.  After some preliminary investigative work, Brunetti is on the train north to join his family on holiday when he gets a call.  The clerk, a Signor Fontana, has been found murdered.  Brunetti must return to the city to crack the case and help Vianello.

Where A Question of Belief does slightly differ from other Brunetti novels is in the extremely relaxed pace.  The first murder does not take place until nearly halfway through the book and up until then, it is a slow ramble through the hot summer.  In some ways, however, it is comfortingly like the rest of the series.  There is no clean ending, as is often the case with Leon, who does not lean towards the neat solutions of many crime novels.  The criminal does not always get punished; indeed, sometimes the criminal can look more moral than the authorities.  In many ways, she has a fairly harsh view of the Italian system and, were it not for what, in my opinion, is the greatest strength of these books, they would begin to resemble Michael Dibdin’s Zen novels far more closely.  It is instructive that Leon’s books have been translated into 20 languages but, at her request, never into Italian.  I suspect she does not want her adopted countrymen to see the force of her criticism.

Where Leon really stands out for me is in the portrayal of Brunetti’s family life – in some ways, the books are almost portrayals of a Venetian family, interspersed with a few crimes.  Brunetti is happily married to Paola, a professor of English literature at the university and has two loving – and lovable – children, Raffi and Chiara.  Pick up any of the Brunetti stories and the most enjoyable sections will be those set in the family apartment, especially at mealtimes.  It may just be that I am a greedy pig but the descriptions of the Venetian meals that Paola makes are mouthwatering.  There is actually a Venetian cookbook called A Taste of Venice: At Table with Brunetti, featuring extracts from the novels with the accompanying recipes.  It has an honoured space in my kitchen bookcase.

Having said that Leon’s books are formulaic, I want to emphasise that, in this case, it is not a criticism.  There is a comforting elegance to Leon’s writing and each time I pick one up, I look forward to reading more about the Brunettis.  There are only two minor criticisms I have.  Firstly, it seems as if Leon is struggling to adapt to the passing of time when it comes to Brunetti’s children.  They are important characters in the series but are growing up rapidly and I don’t think Leon really knows what to do with them.  The result of this is that they are starting to disappear from the narrative, which is a shame.  The other minor beef I have is that Signorina Elettra is becoming too much of a deus ex machina for Brunetti and Vianello.  Her role as information gatherer and administrative trouble shooter has grown over the series but seems to be turning into an easy and lazy way out for Leon.  Less Elettra, please, in future.

These are quibbles, however, and, although A Question of Belief is not my favourite Brunetti, it was still very enjoyable and I look forward to the next book coming out in paperback.  If you are new to Leon, however, like the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, I recommend that you begin at the beginning with Death at La Fenice.