Fatal Remedies [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Donna Leon (Author), Anna Fields (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

The format of this CD is MP3-CD. These unique CDs can be played on newer CD players that support MP3 technology, and they can be played on personal computers. See www.blackstoneaudio.com for more information.

--This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786197412
• ISBN-13: 978-0786197415
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,289,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but nothing Great, June 21, 2002

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fatal Remedies (Audio CD)

This is the first of Leon's books I've read, although it is apparently the eighth in her police procedural series set in Venice and featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. It starts off with a nice twist, with the Commissario's university professor wife deliberately breaking the display window of a travel agency she believes profits from sex tours to southeast Asia. Hers arrest and subsequent repetition of the vandalism/protest obviously creates a number of problems for the Commissario. Professionally he is placed on administrative leave, and at home husband and wife must face differing beliefs in the relationships between morality, law and justice.

Then everything gets a whole lot more complicated when the nominal owner of the travel agency is found murdered. For reasons that aren't ever properly explained, the Commissario is assigned to lead the investigation despite the obvious conflict of interest. Non-Italian readers may just have to chalk it up as another Italian idiosyncrasy. That's actually one of the pleasures of the book-the way Leon subtly incorporates Italian culture throughout the story. Examples include the constant ducking into bars and cafes for drinks and snacks, highly flexible work hours, lengthy lunches at home, and the offhand banality of tax fraud. To fill out the Commissario's portfolio, there is a subplot involving the witness to a bank robbery and possible Mafia intimidation.

The result is a credible, if not exactly dense, procedural built on several social concerns. One flaw is that one never really gets much of a sense of Venice from the book, it felt like it could have been any Italian city. The other flaw is the Commissario's repeated reliance on a uber-hacker secretary who provides him with all manner of data. She's a wholly believable character with unbelievable skills who's far faster and better than any real-life hacker. Those minor complaints aside, it's a diverting read, albeit unlikely to have me scrambling to track down the previous seven in the series.

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 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fatal Remedies (Audio CD)

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.