Customer Reviews

Death at La Fenice

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Venice is for lovers, or so they say. It is also the setting in this thriller, the first of a series by Donna Leon, titled "Death at La Fenice."

La Fenice is the name of Venice's famed opera house and in this novel, death is the event de jour, as a well-known German conductor Helmut Wellauer is found dead in his dressing room, shortly before he was to conduct "La Traviata." Of course, the show must go on. Of course, the police must be called.

And we are introduced to Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police in Venice. He's also a brilliant detective. With suspects galore, Brunetti finds the early going to be confusing and not all what the "facts" may seem.

In Brunetti, Donna Leon has created the quintessential police detective. He is a man whom we are proud to call an acquaintance as we follow his trail in all the Leon books. She describes him: "He was a surprisingly neat man: tie carefully knotted, hair shorter than was the fashion; even his ears lay close to his head, as if reluctant to call attention to themselves. His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman."

Leon, in addition to being a first rate novelist, has been an American English teacher aboard, and healthy international sales have made her vision of Venice well known. She seems to love the city, but with an attitude that shows her feet are on the ground. She lets Brunetti characterize the city: "And then he was at the water's edge, the bridge to his right. How typically Venetian it was, looking, from a distance, lofty and ethereal but revealing itself, upon closer reflection, to be firmly grounded in the mud of the city."

One of the chief suspects is diva and prima donna soprano Flavia Petrelli, who certainly has motive, and is high on Brunetti's list. Flavia, along with her American archeologist and companion Brett Lynch, present more than a conundrum to Brunetti. (We are re-introduced to them in a later book Acqua Alta.) This is no easy crime for the commissario to solve.

Leon creates, certainly, one of the best police procedurals of the last decade. Her books are hard to come by in the U.S., but she has a large following in international circles, especially in Germany and in England. While it is not necessary to read her books in order, naturally, her progression moves more smoothly when done so. "Death at La Fenice" is pure symphony and not a note is to be missed.

Billyjhobbs@tyler.net

At the start of this story someone dies. Then nothing happens for 278 pages except for an endless series of interviews by police detective Guido Brunetti. We are waiting for Guido to deduce the true facts of the case. This is the kind of mystery that is either excellent or no good at all. It is the kind of mystery that people who don't like mysteries think all mysteries are like. This mystery is in the excellent category. If you love Venice, as I do. I lived for 3 years in Aviano north of Venice and fell instantly in love with Venice.

The hero of this book is Venice. Each page lives and breaths Venice. The smells, the sounds, the language, the fog, the people - it's all in the novel. The book took me back to Venice and I enjoyed every minute. Donna Leon is a fine writer. If she would develop an action hero like Sue Grafton or Judith Van Gieson, I think she would become a best selling author. As it is, she's like an absolutely perfect one-carat diamond: small but exceptional and highly valuable. If you love Venice, you'll enjoy this book even if you don't like mysteries.

While I waited for a flight in Venice, I wandered into the bookshop in the little airport there and picked up a handful of Donna Leon's mysteries. I was DELIGHTED! Leon is a University of Maryland professor seconded to a University in the Veneto and she has developed a sweet Venetian detective protagonist, Guido Brunetti. La Fenice (The Phoenix, in Italian) is the famous Venetian opera house and serves as the crime scene for Brunetti's first case. When a famous Austrian orchestra conductor, Helmut Wellauer, is discovered in his dressing room after the second act, dead of cyanide poisoning, Guido must find not only the killer but the motive of course. His search takes him into the sexually perverse past (distant AND recent) of the conductor but also finds him confronting any number of people who are likely suspects including most of the people he worked with and a number of family members. One of the most attractive things about Leon's detective is that he is an amiable, competent family man who is dealing with the quotidian: moody teenaged son, bouncy sure-footed pre-teen daughter, a headstrong and likable wife (an English professor) in addition to an INcompetent power-insecure supervisor who does little but obstruct Brunetti's efforts. The discovery of the murderer is so complicated and the final twist in the end so neatly and tidily closes the case that I was hooked and couldn't wait to read the next one. I have always loved murder mysteries (as one reviewer calls "procedural police mysteries"), and Leon's are among the finest.

I have little to add to the twenty-five reviews of this mystery from 1992 set in Venice's jewel-box of an opera house, La Fenice, except to add what no one else seems to have thought worth mentioning. That is that the 'world-famous conductor' who is the murder victim in this story is clearly modeled after Herbert von Karajan. Such things as his being wanted all over the world, his flying in for one performance before jetting off to another part of the world, the questions about his participation in Nazidom during World War II and so on are clearly references to him.

Aside from that, however, the plot is neatly done, the descriptions of Venice are evocative, the dolce far niente attitudes of Italian culture (particularly that of the Sicilian chief of the Venetian police department) are all drawn with a wickedly funny flair.

Recommended, but particularly for those who love opera.

Scott Morrison

In her first mystery of the series featuring Brunetti, Ms. Leon returns to the more quiet, refined and thoughtful type of mystery. I actually somewhat figured out the ending with about 50 pages to go, but that didn't reduce my pleasure in the book one iota. This book is the antithesis of the all-action, slash and burn, high intensity thrillers typlified by Robert Crais and James Patterson. These other books have there good points, but it is important to note that Donna Leon's series is very different. In the Brunetti books one learns about, and enjoys, Venice and Italian culture. One really cares, for good or evil, about the characters in her book. They are developed slowly and with style. The only comparison I can think of for Donna Leon is the great French detective writer Simenon and Inspector Maigret.

For all those who love Venice and mysteries here is another entry in the Guido Brunetti series. This time a famous but arrogant maestro is killed in the dressing room of Venice's La Fenice opera house. As always the scenes of Brunetti's family life are fascinating and Venice itself becomes a character in the novel. This one is probably the best in the series. The solution is ingenious and came as quite a surprise in its psychological underpinings.

This one never took off for me. I wanted to like it, really I did, but the plot was too repetitive. Why did we have to experience the investigation of the crime with the detective (interviews with suspects etc), only to have him repeating what he had seen/done to his colleagues, his wife etc? Does Leon think her readers are so stupid that every twist of the plot has to be hammered home? I'm afraid that after getting a third of the way through I almost fell asleep waiting for something, ANYTHING, to happen.

This is one of those books where the characters (and Venice is a character herself) are portrayed so well that I feel as if I know them.
While reading it I found myself longing for a good glass of wine to complement the athmosphere set by Donna Leon.

I've read Leon's books out of order, but I don't think it really matters. They are simply excellent, however you read them. Death at la Fenice is the first, and is surprisingly assured and polished for a debut that was written after a challenge from a friend. Given that this is a first performance, Leon was clearly a natural writer for this genre.

This is the first apearance of Guido Brunetti, who is called in to investigate after the death of an eminent conductor part-way through a performance of La Triviata. He was poisoned in his dressing room. The press will be baying for a solution; with every day that passes when this murderer roams free a great slur is wrought on the name of Venice.

As Brunetti diligently digs away, he uncovers a portrait of a complex and fascinating man, but one who has made a very unhealthy number of enemies on his way to the top...

Anyone anywhere who is a fan of crime novels simply cannot ignore Donna Leon. You must pick up one of her sublime books immediately, and you are gauranteed enjoyment. There is such an easy to the writing, and she plots so very well. It moves along at excellent pace, and all manner of secrets and suspects creep fromt he woodwork, and she still manages to produce an absolutely astounding solution which is incredibly satisfying indeed, despite the fact that it seems to break one crime fictions golden rules. That matters not, though; Donna Leon can do absolutely anything. In terms of crime novels, she can do no wrong at all.

Death at la Fenice is a first-class piece of fiction, and Venice makes for an inspired backdrop which she utilises very well indeed. Buy it.

I loved this book. Venice is described as a provincial, everyday little town, a feeling I can recognize being Italian and from the Veneto region. Commissario Brunetti is a modern-day equivalent of Simenon's Maigret: a serious, honest anti-hero. And the analysis of the Italian society is, as in Simenon, sober yet deep, subtle yet elegant. Clearly, the author has a knowledge of practical life in Italy, of regional differences, of the contrasts between a modern elite and the unionized underclass. An italian version would certainly be appreciated by many readers.