Through a Glass, Darkly: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery (The Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries, 15) - Hardcover

Leon, Donna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871139375 ISBN 13: 9780871139375

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006

Synopsis

Donna Leon opens doors to the hidden Venice like no one else. With her latest novel, Through a Glass, Darkly, Leon takes us inside the secretive island of Murano, home of the world-famous glass factories. On a luminous spring day in Venice, Commissario Brunetti and his assistant Vianello play hooky from the Questura in order to help Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti, arrested during an environmental protest. They secure his release, only to be faced by the fury of the man's father-in-law, Giovanni De Cal, a cantankerous glass factory owner who has been heard in the bars of Murano making violent threats about Ribetti. Brunetti's curiosity is piqued, and he finds himself drawn to Murano to investigate. Is De Cal the type of man to carry out his threats? Then one morning the body of De Cal's night watchman is found. Over long lunches, on secret boat rides, in quiet bars, and down narrow streets, Brunetti searches for the killer. Will he unravel the clues before the night watchman's death is allowed to be forgotten?

A fascinating novel set in the intersection between tourism and native Venetian society, Through a Glass, Darkly is Donna Leon at her finest.

About this title

About the Author

A New Yorker of Irish/Spanish descent, Donna Leon first went to Italy in 1965, returning regularly over the next decade or so while pursuing a career as an academic in the States and then later in Iran, China and finally Saudi Arabia. It was after a period in Saudi Arabia, which she found ‘damaging physically and spiritually’ that Donna decided to move to Venice, where she has now lived for over twenty years.

Her debut as a crime fiction writer began as a joke: talking in a dressing room in Venice’s opera-house La Fenice after a performance, Donna and a singer friend were vilifying a particular German conductor. From the thought ‘why don’t we kill him?’ and discussion of when, where and how, the idea for Death at La Fenice took shape, and was completed over the next four months.

Donna Leon is the crime reviewer for the London Sunday Times and is an opera expert. She has written the libretto for a comic opera, entitled Dona Gallina. Set in a chicken coop, and making use of existing baroque music, Donna Gallina was premiered in Innsbruck. Brigitte Fassbaender, one of the great mezzo-sopranos of our time, and now head of the Landestheater in Innsbruck, agreed to come out of retirement both to direct the opera and to play the part of the witch Azuneris (whose name combines the names of the two great Verdi villainesses Azucena and Amneris).

From AudioFile

David Colacci's performance brings an unhurried elegance to Leon's unique detective, Commisario Guido Brunetti. He creates a Venice you can feel in your bones, "cold and damp in winter and hot and damp in summer." Colacci's interpretation of each well-drawn personality is as fresh as the first day of spring, the day Brunetti and his assistant, Vianello, try to help eco-protester Marco Ribetti. Later, a murder at Ribetti's father-in-law's glass factory has Brunetti hunting the killer. Dealing with political corruption, toxic waste, and clues found in Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, Colacci shifts from unaccented narration to a wide range of completely believable Italian accents, never missing a beat, never overstating or slipping into obvious stereotype. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0871139375
• ISBN 13: 9780871139375
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272