{"id":584,"date":"2008-05-31T22:52:50","date_gmt":"2008-06-01T02:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=584"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:38:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:38:05","slug":"acqua-alta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/584","title":{"rendered":"Acqua Alta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acqua Alta<\/a><\/em> (1996) Donna Leon<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In Acqua Alta<\/em> we return to two of the characters that Guido met in the first mystery, Death at La Fenice<\/em><\/a>. Brett Lynch is beaten in the doorway of her own apartment. When Guido discovers what has happened he goes to her hospital where he again meets Flavia Pitrelli, with whom he did not have the most cordial relationship several years before. First they must discover why Brett was beaten. Then, when other deaths follow, they must discover how those deaths are related to the assault against Brett.<\/p>\n

Guido’s humanity shines through in this story just as strongly as it does in the previous stories. What isn’t as strong, however, is the mystery. Unlike previous book, I was pretty sure that Brett and Flavia were going to survive–it would have been unnecessarily cruel to bring them back just to kill one of them off, and we got to know few other characters, so there was little sense of loss related to the deaths.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the scenes with Guido at home with his family seemed almost tacked on, as opposed to these vignettes as they appear in other stories. He still loves his family, but the familial interludes seemed to me to lack the depth of earlier episodes.<\/p>\n

We also left Guido’s POV several times to return to Brett. Although this allowed us to follow her part of the story when Guido was absent, it also made her danger less immediate. To her know thoughts as the story passed seemed to say that she would survive to the end of the story to share those thoughts, so her danger, although immediate and severe, as not deadly.<\/p>\n

The other off note was that although we began the story with Brett, and returned to her POV several times throughout the story, she is somehow abandoned at th end of the story. Flavia mentions Brett several times, but the shift from knowing what Brett was thinking and feeling to hearing about her third hand was distinctly unsatisfying.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, this was a very good book. I just felt the ending wasn’t nearly as strong as previous books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acqua Alta (1996) Donna Leon In Acqua Alta we return to two of the characters that Guido met in the first mystery, Death at La Fenice. Brett Lynch is beaten in the doorway of her own apartment. When Guido discovers what has happened he goes to her hospital where he again meets Flavia Pitrelli, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[8,291,42],"tags":[97,96],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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-9q","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5449,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5449","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":0},"title":"Acqua Alta","author":"Michelle","date":"October 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Acqua Alta (1996) Donna Leon The fifth book in the Commisario Brunetti series finds the city of Venice a major character, as the Acqua Alta threatens the city with flooding. We also return to Flavia Petrelli and Brett, the women from the first book. Brett has returned to the city\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\/Acqua-Alta.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3995,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3995","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":1},"title":"Acqua Alta","author":"Michelle","date":"August 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Acqua-Alta.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":578,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/578","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":2},"title":"Death in a Strange Country","author":"Michelle","date":"May 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Death in a Strange Country (1993) Donna Leon The second Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery (how I managed to read the third book instead of the second in two different series within a week is beyond me) finds Guido awakened to come down to a canal as a body was found\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-in-a-Strange-Country-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4001,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4001","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":3},"title":"Quietly in Their Sleep","author":"Michelle","date":"September 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Quietly in Their Sleep\/Death of Faith (1997) Donna Leon This was published as Death of Faith in Great Britain. So if you come across that, it's the same as Quietly in their Sleep. Brunetti is surprised by a young woman who comes into his office, asking him to look into\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":735,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/735","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":4},"title":"Friends in High Places","author":"Michelle","date":"October 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Friends in High Places (2000) Donna Leon Apparently, Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti books are not being published in the US following European copyright dates. Friends in High Places has a European copyright of 2000, but was published in the US only recently. Not that this particularly matters in the grand\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\/Friends-in-High-Places.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":717,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/717","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":5},"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":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584","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=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}