Editorial Content for Trace Elements: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
If you have never read one of Donna Leon’s marvelous Guido Brunetti mysteries, don’t let the unfamiliar locale and culture --- Venice --- or the fact that the newly published TRACE ELEMENTS is the 29th installment in the series dissuade you. These novels are written so that one can pick them up in any order at any time without missing a beat. As for the culture of Venice, there are elements of it that remain a mystery to all, including the Venetians themselves. Commissario Brunetti of the Venetian police is more an observer than an interpreter, which is just perfect for this long-running, character-driven series that never fails to winningly entertain.
As with most of these books, TRACE ELEMENTS includes a strong primary plotline anchored by an intriguing mystery as well as a secondary problem, the presentation of which constitutes an interlude. Let’s discuss the latter first. The number of pickpockets in Venice are skyrocketing for reasons that are not entirely known to Brunetti. He is not tasked with discovering why, though he figures it out. He is merely instructed to deal with the issue and make it go away for a few days. This he does, and along the way readers get an idea of how law enforcement, politics and the news media interact in Venice.
"Leon is incapable of writing badly and is a subtle, nuanced storyteller of the first order. TRACE ELEMENTS continues her wondrous string of memorable police procedurals, all of which are keepers."
The primary mystery here takes longer to resolve. It begins when Brunetti receives a call from a physician at a local hospice advising him that a dying patient wishes to speak to the police. Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, respond to the bedside of Benedetta Toso, a tragic figure under any circumstances. In addition to being terminally ill, Benedetta has recently lost her husband, Vittorio Fadalto, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his motorcycle. She is only able to offer a couple of cryptic statements that appear to be related to her husband’s efforts to obtain additional money for her care at a different hospice. Brunetti and Griffoni learn that Vittorio had a fairly innocuous job working as a sample collector for a company that measures the cleanliness of the Venetian water supply.
It is the enigmatic Signora Elettra Zorzi, secretary to Brunetti’s immediate superior, Vice Questore Patta, who effectively runs the department. Her superior ability to gather research no matter where it may be is ultimately what provides Brunetti with the informational key he needs to unlock the doors that reveal the why and the who behind Vittorio’s death, among other things. All Brunetti has to decide is what to do with the information, which is not nearly as simple as it may seem.
I say this at least once a year, but it bears repeating: Anyone who has even a passing interest in mystery literature should be reading this series religiously. Leon is incapable of writing badly and is a subtle, nuanced storyteller of the first order. TRACE ELEMENTS continues her wondrous string of memorable police procedurals, all of which are keepers.
Teaser
When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. “They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,” Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him, Brunetti softly promises that he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region.
Promo
When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. “They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,” Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him, Brunetti softly promises that he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region.
About the Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN comes one of her most dark and thrilling mysteries yet.
A woman’s cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entire region in Donna Leon’s haunting 29th Brunetti novel.
When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding.
“They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,” Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice’s water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta’s obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta’s secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus’s classic play THE EUMENIDES.
As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.
Audiobook available, read by David Colacci
