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Title: Death At La Fenice by Donna Leon ISBN: 0-06-104337-0 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: January, 1995 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Quiet Type of Mystery
Comment: In her first mystery of the series featuring Brunetti, Ms. Leon returns to the more quiet, refined and thoughtful type of mystery. I actually somewhat figured out the ending with about 50 pages to go, but that didn't reduce my pleasure in the book one iota. This book is the antithesis of the all-action, slash and burn, high intensity thrillers typlified by Robert Crais and James Patterson. These other books have there good points, but it is important to note that Donna Leon's series is very different. In the Brunetti books one learns about, and enjoys, Venice and Italian culture. One really cares, for good or evil, about the characters in her book. They are developed slowly and with style. The only comparison I can think of for Donna Leon is the great French detective writer Simenon and Inspector Maigret.
Rating: 4
Summary: What FUN the Brunetti mysteries are!!
Comment: While I waited for a flight in Venice, I wandered into the bookshop in the little airport there and picked up a handful of Donna Leon's mysteries. I was DELIGHTED! Leon is a University of Maryland professor seconded to a University in the Veneto and she has developed a sweet Venetian detective protagonist, Guido Brunetti. La Fenice (The Phoenix, in Italian) is the famous Venetian opera house and serves as the crime scene for Brunetti's first case. When a famous Austrian orchestra conductor, Helmut Wellauer, is discovered in his dressing room after the second act, dead of cyanide poisoning, Guido must find not only the killer but the motive of course. His search takes him into the sexually perverse past (distant AND recent) of the conductor but also finds him confronting any number of people who are likely suspects including most of the people he worked with and a number of family members. One of the most attractive things about Leon's detective is that he is an amiable, competent family man who is dealing with the quotidian: moody teenaged son, bouncy sure-footed pre-teen daughter, a headstrong and likable wife (an English professor) in addition to an INcompetent power-insecure supervisor who does little but obstruct Brunetti's efforts. The discovery of the murderer is so complicated and the final twist in the end so neatly and tidily closes the case that I was hooked and couldn't wait to read the next one. I have always loved murder mysteries (as one reviewer calls "procedural police mysteries"), and Leon's are among the finest.
Rating: 5
Summary: a powerful start to a great series
Comment: Donna Leon is an American writer who lives in Venice, and "death at Le Fenice" is the first in her wonderful series of Comissario Brunetti mystery novels. At the center of the series Brunetti is an intensely likeable, complex and believable character, and this craftsmanship of characters is true for the whole book. A famous maestro is murdered at the Venice opera house and behind the facade of a near-perfect public figure Brunettti begins to find and fear some very dark and intriguing aspects of the maestros life that are "molto agitato" and shocking. The storyline is very inventive, yet not contrived. What sets Leon apart from many other American writers trying their hand at European scenarios is that she really understands her location and the culture very well. Her backdrops and storylines are well-researched and full of athmospheric density. A great read that will get you hooked for more
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Title: A Noble Radiance by Donna Leon ISBN: 0142003190 Publisher: Penguin USA (Mm) Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Uniform Justice: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon ISBN: 0871139030 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Acqua Alta by Donna Leon ISBN: 0330346261 Publisher: Pan Books Ltd |
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Title: The Terra-Cotta Dog: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery by Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli ISBN: 0142002631 Publisher: Penguin USA (Mm) Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon ISBN: 0061094064 Publisher: Harper Mass Market Paperbacks Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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