Death at La Fenice

Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon (A Commissario Brunetti Mystery)

When I saw this on sale as an eBook deal of the day on Amazon, I snatched it up. I am slowly coming to prefer eBooks to paper books, and am always glad to get favorites in electronic format.

I first stumbled across Commissario Brunetti in 2008, when I was on a mystery reading kick. I fell in love with Brunetti and Venice and especially the food and the meals described. Not sure if it’s all books set in Italy, or just mysteries but in both this series and Andrea Camilleri‘s Inspector Montalbano series, food is as much of a character as the detectives and the places where they live.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that the mystery is shorted. Just that in this series Venice and food as major characters are much as Paola.

What I had forgotten though, are that Vianello and Signora Elettra don’t make an appearance in the first book. They are such a part of the Questura and Brunetti’s work to solve the mysteries it’s very odd for them to be missing.

As to the mystery, a famous conductor is found dead in his dressing room between the second and third acts–the cause of death is obvious: cyanide in his coffee. And as good a conductor as he was, he was also a very difficult man–one who it was rumored had ties to the Nazis during the second world war.

Although some elements of later mysteries (Vianello and Signora Elettra) aren’t here, Brunetti’s dry wit is already well-formed.

‘Is she pretty?’ Brunetti realized Patta must have found out about the difference in age between the dead man and his widow.

‘If you like tall blondes,’ Brunetti said.

‘Don’t you?’

‘My wife doesn’t permit me to, sir.’

Of course Paola and their children aren’t quite as well developed in this story as in later stories, but I see that mostly in that we have yet to see any of Paola’s flaws and quirks. But there’s nothing to dislike here.

But as I said, the city is as much a character as Brunetti. Take this description of a building Brunetti is visiting to interview a witness.

A single flight of stairs lay off to the right, and he began to climb, noting with pleasure the slight concavity that hundreds of years of use had hollowed out of each step. He liked the way the declivity forced him to walk up the centre of the staircase.

Living in such a young country, I only rarely get to see such things, so when I do, I’m always impressed by how the passage of time affects seemingly immutable objects (like stone or marble stairs).

Plus, the odd bits that amuse me.

Her joy pulled her to her feet, raised her hands towards heaven. ‘I feel myself reborn,’ she cried, whereupon, this being opera, she promptly collapsed and died.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever get opera, myself.

So this was a lovely and enjoyable re-read, although it did make me slightly melancholy, as I remembered that Grandmom loved this series as well.
Rating: 8/10

Published by Grove Press

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