Give Unto Others

Give Unto Others (2022) Donna Leon (Commissario Brunetti)

This is the 31st Brunetti book. It seems weird this series has been running for 30 years. Partially because at some point she stopped aging Brunetti and his family, so his eldest has been on the cusp of adulthood for more than a decade.

This book is set during the pandemic, with all the characters at the Questura moving forward in time while themselves remaining unchanging.

This isn’t a ding on the series. Some of my favorite mystery authors do this, wanting to keep writing a character, and unlike Ian Rankin, not wanting to force their characters into retirement. Once you realize what’s happening, you just accept it, but there are always a couple books where the characters pasts start to shift before fading entirely.

I find it fascinating.

As far as the pandemic, Brunetti has several ruminations on the events–many of which revolve around the emptiness of Venice.

it resembled attending an autopsy, or, more accurately, walking into the morgue at the Ospedale. In Campo Manin, the bodies of dead shops lined the way to the canal. There was a dead Middle Eastern fast-food place, a dead sporting goods shop, a dead clothes shop with two dead mannequins in the window, and, at last, the dead travel agency. Luckily, shops didn’t have toes.

The mystery was ok. Honestly, right now the draw of the books is spending with in Venice with these characters. The mysteries are mostly secondary.

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Rating: 7/10

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