Fatal Remedies

Fatal Remedies (1999) Donna Leon

I started Fatal Remedies immediately after I finished A Noble Radiance, wasn’t sure about the direction the story was taking, and then picked it up again today, as I have a whole stack of Guido Brunetti books waiting to be read.

What I was unsure about was how things were going to turn out between Guido and Paola. As his marriage is one of the centers of his world, any threat to the stability made me unhappy. However, that concern rapidly disappeared as the situation turned deadly.

As always, Donna Leon is good at pointing out the inadequacies of the legal system, and how easy it would be for a good man to begin to work outside the system, as so many other police in the system did. So I very much enjoyed Guido (mostly) sticking to his principles, and for once meeting a lawyer who was much the same as him.

But the book also probes more deeply into the question of what action is moral when immoral actions seem to be allowed by the legal system. No answers are provided, but in the corruption of Guido’s Venice, it is as always an interesting question to consider.

As with all the books so far in the series, you should easily be able to read Fatal Remedies even if you have read no other books in the series. However, I will note that Paola’s actions and beliefs–and Brunetti’s reactions to them–may seem strange to someone who has not been reading the series.
Rating: 8/10

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