58 of 58 copies available
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, Signorina 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.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
March 3, 2020 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781980069690
- File size: 289003 KB
- Duration: 10:02:05
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 27, 2020
At the start of bestseller Leon’s thought-provoking 29th mystery featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti (after 2019’s Unto Us a Son Is Given), Brunetti and his colleague, Commissario Claudia Griffoni, are called to a hospice at the request of 38-year-old Benedetta Toso, who’s dying of cancer. Though Benedetta isn’t fully lucid, Brunetti and Griffoni learn that she suspects foul play in the recent death of her husband, Vittorio Fadalto, a water distribution technician employed by the firm Spattuto Acqua. Vittorio drowned when his motorcycle went off the road, yet he had a reputation for careful behavior when it came to safety. His wife hints that Vittorio was involved in something dishonest, and the expert online sleuthing by a colleague of Brunetti’s uncovers disturbing financial transactions. Brunetti sets out to examine employee activities at Spattuto Acqua, which is charged with maintaining the integrity of Venice’s water supply. As usual, Leon adroitly portrays the complex questions of what constitutes justice and the sad consequences that can result from its pursuit. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Susanne Bauknecht, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland).
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