Acqua Alta

Acqua Alta (1996) Donna Leon

This story returns to Brett and Flavia, who we met in the first book, Death at La Fenice. Brett has returned from China, only it appears that someone is not happy for her to have returned.

It is the time of acqua alta, or high water, in Venice. The sirens go off, the walkways flood, and temporary boardwalks are put up, and anyone with property and ground level will find it flooded.

We finally see Vianello and Signorina Elettra taking a larger part at Brunetti’s work–something I’ve been waiting for as I have been re-reading these books.

‘(I)t didn’t seem they were interested in taking anything.’

‘Short-sighted on their part. It would be a good place to rob.’

At this, Brunetti broke down. ‘How do you know that, Vianello?’

‘My sister-in-law’s next-door neighbor is her maid. Goes in three times a week to clean, keeps and eye on the place when she’s in China. She’s talked about what’s in there, says it must be worth a fortune.’

Of course, Patta remains.

(H)e removed his coat and put it on a hanger, then hung it on the curtain rod that ran in front of the window above the radiator. Anyone looking into the room from across the canal would see, perhaps, a man who had hanged himself in his own office. If they worked in the Questura, their first impulse would no doubt be to count the floors, looking to see if it was Patta’s window.

But of course characters in every story are Italy and Venice. As an American, some of the things that Brunetti and others accept as the way things are done continues to surprise me.

No Italian would bother to ask why the shipments were not made directory in Germany. The Germans, it was rumored, saw the law as something to be obeyed, unlike the Italians, who saw it as something first to be fathomed and then evaded.

Of course, there is a mystery as well, and as usual, justice is mutable. It seems to me that trying to be a police officer in a land where justice is mutable would be a very very hard thing. Yet Brunetti doesn’t give up.
Rating: 7/10

Published by Grove Press

 
 

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