{"id":517,"date":"2008-02-17T16:38:12","date_gmt":"2008-02-17T21:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/517"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:37:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:37:31","slug":"death-at-la-fenice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/517","title":{"rendered":"Death at La Fenice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death at La Fenice<\/a><\/em> (1992) Donna Leon<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Guido Brunetti is vice-commissario of police in the Venice, and a good detective as well. When a world famous maestro is found dead in his dressing room, from what seems to be cyanide poisoning, Guido is immediately pressured to find the killer, lest Venice receive bad press.<\/p>\n

Although I guessed the killer about halfway through, it didn’t take away any of my enjoyment from the story, because I’d still not figured out they why. <\/p>\n

Guido is a very good detective who is also compassionate–something that you don’t always find in fictional police detectives. I enjoyed watching Guido’s impressions of different individuals change as he spent more time interviewing them. The other thing I liked was his relationship with his family and his wife’s family. Relationships that initially seemed cliched quickly turned into something more complex, as we see Guido’s opinion of those around him changing–and learn of their impressions of him.<\/p>\n

Donna Leon does a very good job of building not just the mystery, but also the characters and the story. No one is quite as expected, and the story wandered in place I didn’t expect, but seemed reasonable after we went there.<\/p>\n

About the only thing that struck me as strange was the attitude towards homosexuals held by certain characters in the story. I am not sure if this was due to the fact that the book was set more than 15 years ago, or because the attitudes in Italy are different from those in the US (I’d actually be very interested in learning which it was–but not curious enough that I’m going to do work and look it up.) And let me make it clear it was not the main characters that held these attitudes, but those attitudes did not seem to be seen as unusual, which was unusual for me.<\/p>\n

I also loved the details about Venice, and how the city plays such a prominent part in the story. It’s another city I’ve love to visit, but I fear that by the time I ever get around to all the travel I’d like to do, the feel of so many cities will be gone.<\/p>\n

If you like mysteries set in cities not your own, then I highly recommend Death at La Fenice<\/em>. Good detective, good city, good story.
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon Guido Brunetti is vice-commissario of police in the Venice, and a good detective as well. When a world famous maestro is found dead in his dressing room, from what seems to be cyanide poisoning, Guido is immediately pressured to find the killer, lest Venice receive bad press. Although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,8,291,42],"tags":[97,96],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-mystery","category-paper","category-police","tag-commissario-guido-brunetti","tag-donna-leon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-8l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5434,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5434","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":0},"title":"Death at La Fenice","author":"Michelle","date":"October 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon I love Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series. It's set in Venice, Italy, and the place is a much a character as Brunetti, his family, and the other members of the Questura. Like all street addresses in Venice, the one the American had given\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Death-at-La-Fenice","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Death-at-La-Fenice.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13525,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13525","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":1},"title":"Death at La Fenice","author":"Michelle","date":"October 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon (Commissario Brunetti) A famous conductor is found dead during the intermission of the opera he was conducting. The police are called, and so we are first introduced to Guido Brunetti, Comissario of the Venice police. What surprises me every time I re-read this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Death at la Fenice","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Death-at-La-Fenice-e1511015320566.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":574,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/574","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":2},"title":"Dressed for Death","author":"Michelle","date":"May 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Dressed for Death (1994) Donna Leon The second third Commiario Guido Brunetti mystery, Dressed for Death starts with the body of what is assumed to be a prostitute found behind a slaughterhouse in Marghera. The case falls to the Mestre police department, however due to a series of unfortunate events,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Dressed-for-Death-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":588,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/588","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":3},"title":"Quietly in Their Sleep","author":"Michelle","date":"June 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Quietly in Their Sleep (1997) Donna Leon This was a rather strange story in comparison to the previous books. Brunetti is given only a vague idea that there might be something untoward happening in a nursing home--a home that is run by the same man as the home in which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Quietly-in-Their-Sleep.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/683","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":4},"title":"Uniform Justice","author":"Michelle","date":"October 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Uniform Justice (2003) Donna Leon I really like Commissario Guido Brunetti. I like his sense of justice and fairness. I like his intelligence and wit. And I like his wife. In fact I think I wish I was Paola. A boy is found dead in the local military school, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Uniform-Justice-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3912,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3912","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":5},"title":"Death at La Fenice","author":"Michelle","date":"July 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"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.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Death-at-La-Fenice.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}