Donna Leon
21) A noble radiance
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An unassuming uninhabited farmhouse in the Italian countryside delivers up its gruesome secret when its overgrown grounds are cleared for the first time in decades. What is left of the decomposing body is of little help to the urgently summoned Brunetti...until a distinctively valuable signet ring, found nearby, links the mangled remains to a kidnapped scion of Venetian aristocracy.
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"Count Falier was urging his Venetian son-in-law to investigate, and preferably intervene in, the seemingly innocent plan of the Count's best friend, the elderly Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejada, to adopt a much younger man as his son. Under Italian inheritance laws this man would then be heir to Gonzalo's entire fortune, a prospect Gonzalo's friends find appalling. For his part, Brunetti wonders why the old man, a close family friend, can't be allowed...
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Investigating the lack of a building permit for Commissioner Brunetti's apartment, a young bureaucrat uncovers a frightening secret and promptly dies from an apparently accidental fall; investigating his death in turn, Brunetti is drawn into a world of drugs, loan-sharking, and corruption.
25) Willful behavior
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"Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife's students. Intelligent and serious, Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather. Brunetti thinks little of it--until Claudia is found dead. Soon, another corpse and an extraordinary art collection lead Brunetti to long-buried secrets of Nazi collaboration and the exploitation of Italian Jews--secrets few in Italy want revealed."...
27) Acqua alta
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The Venice commissioner, Guido Brunetti, investigates the murder of a museum director who was involved in the traffic of Chinese antiques. Suspicion falls on a wealthy collector. By the author of Death and Judgment.
28) Uniform justice
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This internationally best-selling novelist has captivated fans throughout the world with her ever adroit, big-hearted Venetian detective Commissario Guido Brunetti. The Guardian raved that Leon's Brunetti series is crime writing of the highest order: powerful, relevant, and all too full of human failings. As Uniform Justice opens Brunetti is called to investigate a parent's worst nightmare: A young cadet has been found hanged, a presumed suicide,...
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When Maria Testa, better known to Brunetti as the nun who once had cared for his mother, turns up at the Commissario's door, after leaving her convent following the suspicious deaths of five patients, Brunetti launches a personal investigation into the situation.
31) Gondola
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This illustrated history of the gondola-its cultural significance and ingenious design-includes audio recordings of Venetian barcarole.
First used in medieval Venice as a getaway boat, the gondola evolved over the centuries from a floating pleasure palace for the Venetian elite, to a tourist favorite in the city. In Gondola, international bestselling author Donna Leon tells stories about the history of these boats. She discusses how all 280...
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For many years Donna Leon, acclaimed for her bestselling mystery series featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti, has written essays for European publications. Collected here are over fifty of her best: funny, charming, passionate, and insightful essays in which she shares episodes from her life in Venice, her love of opera, tales from in and around her country house in the mountains, and offers observations on the idea of the Italian man.
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Commissario Guido Brunetti's hopes for a refreshing family holiday in the mountains are once again dashed when a gruesome discovery is made in Marghera-a body so badly beaten the face is completely unrecognizable. Brunetti searches Venice for someone who can identify the corpse but is met with a wall of silence. He then receives a telephone call from a contact who promises some tantalizing information. And before the night is out, Brunetti is confronting...
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Early one morning, Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice police confronts a grisly sight when the body of a young man is fished out of a fetid canal. All clues point to a violent mugging, but for Brunetti the motive of robbery seems altogether too convenient. When something discovered in the victim's apartment suggests the existence of a high-level conspiracy, Brunetti becomes convinced that somebody, somewhere, is taking great pains to provide...
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In Death and Judgment, a truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the Laguna. But it will take another violent...
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With his hometown of Venice, Italy, beset by hordes of tourists and baking under a glaring sun, Guido Brunetti's greatest wish is to go to the mountains with his family, where he can sleep under a down comforter and catch up on his reading. But before he can go on vacation, a folder with court records has landed on his desk, brought by an old friend. It appears that cases at the local court-hardly known as a model of efficiency-are being delayed to...
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When acclaimed novelist Donna Leon is not conjuring up tales of crime and corruption in Venice, or reveling in delicious cuisine, she is listening to music. For Leon, patron of conductor Alan Curtis and his celebrated orchestra Il Complesso Barocco, that usually means the work of her favorite composer, George Frideric Handel. Over the years, Leon has noticed that the great musician filled his operas with arias that make reference to animals; rich...
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Among their many pleasures, Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti novels have long been celebrated for their mouth-watering descriptions of food. Multicourse lunches at home with Paola and the children, snacks grabbed at a bar with a glass of wine or two, a quick sandwich during a busy day, or a working lunch at a neighborhood trattoria in the course of an investigation have all delighted Brunetti, as well as Leon's readers and reviewers. And then...