Fatal Remedies (Commissario Guido Brunetti) [Mass Market Paperback]

Donna Leon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Commissario Guido Brunetti | Publication Date: September 25, 2007

Donna Leon's multitude of fans around the world has grown with each new Commissario Brunetti novel, and now mystery lovers in the United States can enjoy another compelling episode. In Fatal Remedies, Brunetti's career is under threat when his professional and personal lives unexpectedly intersect. In the chill of the Venetian dawn, a sudden act of vandalism shatters the quiet of the deserted city, and Brunetti is shocked to find that the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene is a member of his own family. Meanwhile, he is also under pressure from his superiors to solve a daring robbery with connections to a suspicious accidental death. Could the two crimes be connected? And will Brunetti be able to prove his family's innocence before it's too late?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever"
-The Washington Post

"No one knows the labyrinthine world of Venice . . . like Leon's Brunetti."
-Time

"[Brunetti's] humane police work is disarming, and his ambles through the city are a delight."
- The New York Times Book Review

"The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti, with his love of food and his loving family, proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities."
-The Wall Street Journal

About the Author

Donna Leon has received both the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction and the German Corrine Prize for her novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143112422
• ISBN-13: 978-0143112426
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

More About the Author

A New Yorker of Irish/Spanish descent, Donna Leon first went to Italy in 1965, returning regularly over the next decade or so while pursuing a career as an academic in the States and then later in Iran, China and finally Saudi Arabia. Leon has received both the CWA Macallon Silver Dagger for Fiction and the German Corrine Prize for her novels featuring Commisario Guido Brunetti. She lives in Venice.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Donna Leon leads a high mystery parade!, May 7, 2008

By 

Billy J. Hobbs "Bill Hobbs" (Tyler, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fatal Remedies (Commissario Guido Brunetti) (Mass Market Paperback)

Donna Leon's eighth novel in her Commissario Guido Brunetti series is another crown of glory for this American writer. In "Fatal Remedies," Leon, ever the one to keep her readers' absolute attention riveted to all details, continues her intriguing mise en scene mysteries with sharp focus, clarity of detail, and powerful character observations. This book is well worth the wait.

Leon begins with a new twist: Brunetti's wife Paola has been arrested for smashing the window of a travel agency which she knows arranges sex-tours to third-world countries where Westerners exploit, especially, the child-for-sex trade. This is an issue which Paola finds she cannot permit to go unnoticed, having two children of her own. Like Antigone, her sense of moral outrage at an issue the state does nothing about extends to the point where she takes the law into her own hands. Through her personal crusade, she hopes to call attention to this social canker and, with public outrage she hopes to generate this evil will be halted. She believes that she is prepared to take the consequences for her own actions. It is not so simple, she finds out. Unfortunately, she discovers that her own crusade has negative ramifications for her family and that instead of halting one injustice, she appears to be compounding another by hurting the ones she loves....Brunetti is called back to work and the chase begins.

Brunetti, whose passion for truth, justice, equality, and respect for his beloved Venice, finds himself once again forced to confront moral and legal dilemmas. Leon is at her best and "Fatal Remedies" doesn't miss a beat as the pace picks up, page by page...Leon is not one to dodge social and contemporary issues, as her readers well know from previous books. Her views on environmental destruction (and how the Italian government and its citizens view the subject), social and political corruption, and such social issues as sex-tourism and the importation of former East Bloc citizens to work the local prostitution trade are readily identified. And the author is not timid in her criticism. It's not that she is indicting Italy and the Italians, but that these ills seem to be pervasive.

Leon, an American, lives in Venice and knows the Italians well, but she has lived in other countries (previously she had taught English at an American university at the Vicenza U.S. Army post) and is well versed on contemporary issues. And she loves Venice. Each of her novels tenders her feelings for the Most Serene Republic and readers cannot escape without feeling the life, the very essence of Venice, and her knowledge of that city's history and its ethnic origins make her books ring with a resonance that is real yet we know her story is "only a novel."

In "Fatal Remedies," Leon counts on her readers to assume much (in fact, a first-time reader may be confused by references that are clear only from having read earlier works), which is a shortcoming of individual works in such series; however, as "a part of the whole" this book works well and contains all the ingredients Leon has so successfully concocted in the past. The publisher tells us that she is currently working on a new installment. Shall we count the days?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rare Mystery That Will Trouble Your Conscience, December 11, 2007

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fatal Remedies (Paperback)

Part of the appeal of mysteries is that we can enter a world of intrigue, evil-doers, and hidden secrets without any personal danger or discomfort . . . except for the occasional grisly detail. Donna Leon challenges that formula by raising a question of conscience in Fatal Remedies that will probably leave you squirming: I know it had that effect on me.

What would you do to stop a moral wrong that's being perpetuated in front of you? Unless taking a stand is unavoidable, most people simply ignore the whole thing. That's clearly not the case for Commissario Guido Brunetti's professor wife, Paola, who makes life difficult for everyone in the family by protesting in a violent way.

The moral dilemma is raised to another height when it appears that Paola's act may have had unintended consequence. After you finish this book, think about what you should do about the same moral dilemma with regard to something that's legal . . . but highly immoral.

By bringing Paola's personality into the story in greater ways, Fatal Remedies is enriched with a more interesting set of questions. If you are like me, you'll be especially amused to see how Guido reacts to moral issues about doing illegal things to bring wrong-doers to justice. You'll quickly see that there are two sides to the coin of does the end justify the means.

The ultimate mystery is solved in the second half of the book where the condensation does no harm to making a good story.

I listened to the unabridged Blackstone Audio version of Fatal Remedies that is read by Anna Fields. I recommend that you avoid this audio. Although Ms. Fields can speak quite good Italian as she demonstrates on the audio, she chooses to render the male characters in English as though they were from the country in the U.S. south. This style particularly perturbed me because I had thought of Guido Brunetti as a refined person based on his reading tastes and subtle handling of boors. He comes across in this reading sounding much like Dean Robillard, the NFL quarterback in Natural Born Charmers which Ms. Field also read.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The petty crimes of Paola Brunetti, September 12, 2006

By 

Linda Pagliuco "katknit" (CT, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fatal Remedies (Paperback)

Paola Brunetti, the Commissario's brilliant and caring wife, goads him into doing something about the terrible problem of marketing child prostitutes to tourists and businessmen. Much to Guido's chagrin, however, the methods she uses to focus attention upon this atrocity are not quite within the law. Following the demands of his own conscience, however, Guido juggles personal and professional complications to try to see that justice is done, never an easy task when the Mafia and big money are involved.