{"id":5488,"date":"2015-11-08T20:08:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T01:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2025-08-04T18:56:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T22:56:25","slug":"blood-from-a-stone-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5488","title":{"rendered":"Blood from a Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blood from a Stone<\/a><\/em> (2005) Donna Leon<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A young African man–a v\u00fa cumpr\u00e1<\/em>, or street vendor–is shot down on the street in what seems to be a professional hit.<\/p>\n

Brunetti, Vianello and Signorina Elettra attempt to discover why the man was murdered in cold blood, but at every turn they run into road blocks–and not just the usual issues of Patta wanting to make crime in Venice look low and to make Venice look safe.<\/p>\n

We also meet Don Alvise, an ex-priest who is actually respected by Brunetti.<\/p>\n

(T)o the public administration, these people were problems, while to Don Alvise, they were people with <\/em>problems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that is an issue that is not limited to Italy, but is something that should be considered by everyone.<\/p>\n

There was also a passage that I liked especially, since it was similar to an attitude my grandmother held. <\/p>\n

‘It didn’t matter to my parents what work a person did, whether they ran a bank or a workshop: the important thing was that they worked and that they thought their work was important.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It doesn’t matter what<\/em> work someone does, if they are doing their work to the best of their ability, they deserve respect.<\/p>\n

This is a complex, complicated, and thought-provoking mystery. It looks (unsurprisingly, from the name of the book) at conflict diamonds from Africa, but instead of simply stating that conflict diamonds are bad, we have complex character whose story we never quite know, and whom we are never sure if they are good or bad–because there isn’t truly a position of good or bad in so many problems, but instead one side and another side.<\/p>\n

I’m explaining badly what she shows so eloquently, which is one of the things that makes this story well-worth reading.
\nRating: 8.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Penguin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blood from a Stone (2005) Donna Leon A young African man–a v\u00fa cumpr\u00e1, or street vendor–is shot down on the street in what seems to be a professional hit. Brunetti, Vianello and Signorina Elettra attempt to discover why the man was murdered in cold blood, but at every turn they run into road blocks–and not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[191,8,42,41],"tags":[97,96],"class_list":["post-5488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-5-10","category-mystery","category-police","category-reread","tag-commissario-guido-brunetti","tag-donna-leon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-1qw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4038,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4038","url_meta":{"origin":5488,"position":0},"title":"Blood from a Stone","author":"Michelle","date":"September 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Blood from a Stone (2005) Donna Leon A young man--a vu cumpra--is assassinated on the streets a few days before Christmas. As always, Patta is up to his neck in the politics. And as always, this conflicts with Brunetti's search for the truth and justice. Weirdly, I'd remembered part of\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\/Blood-from-a-Stone-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2024,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2024","url_meta":{"origin":5488,"position":1},"title":"A Question of Belief","author":"Michelle","date":"October 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A Question of Belief (2010) Donna Leon It's summer in Venice, and Brunetti wishes that all criminals would take a vacation with the rest of the country, to allow them to escape the oppressive heat. But even if the criminals were to take a break, two different problems that may\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\/Question-of-Belief.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10062,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/10062","url_meta":{"origin":5488,"position":2},"title":"The Temptation of Forgiveness","author":"Michelle","date":"March 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Temptation of Forgiveness (2018) Donna Leon One of Paola's co-workers comes to Brunetti because she fears her son is using drugs. Elletra seems to have gotten herself into a spot of troupe. Patta wants Brunetti to deak with issues with Scarpa. The instinct to institutional survival stilled Brunetti\u2019s tongue.\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\/2018\/03\/The-Temptation-of-Forgiveness.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":717,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/717","url_meta":{"origin":5488,"position":3},"title":"Blood from a Stone","author":"Michelle","date":"October 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Blood from a Stone (2005) Donna Leon In Donna Leon's fourteenth Commissario Guido Brunetti book, a vu cumpra is shot down on the street by hired assassins. Brunetti is (eventually) called to the scene, and attempts to unravel why a man selling fake handbags was shot in cold blood on\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\/Blood-from-a-Stone-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5434,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5434","url_meta":{"origin":5488,"position":4},"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":3043,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3043","url_meta":{"origin":5488,"position":5},"title":"Drawing Conclusions","author":"Michelle","date":"July 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Drawing Conclusions (2010) Donna Leon I love Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series. Brunetti is a mostly honest police detective who works in a mostly dishonest and entirely complex system. He is also in love with his wife and has two decent kids, and has co-workers who respect him. Of course,\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\/Drawing-Conclusions.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488","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=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}