Customer Reviews

A Question of Belief: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery (Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Venice this summer has been hotter than blazes, hotter than Hades, hotter than Dante's inner circles and what must a police commasario to do to get out of the city for a vacation sure to be a cool respite from all the law and order stuff he deals with year-round?

For Donna Leon's inimitable Guido Brunetti it seems the summer's heat is interminable but there's a light (a cool breeze?) just ahead--a vacation to the Alps to cool things off. At least that's what he's hoping. "Not only was it too hot to think about crossing the city to go home for lunch; it was too hot to think about eating."

Alas, in Ms Leon's 19th Brunetti case, "A Question of Belief," this is not to be.

While Brunetti and all of Venice may be suffering from the summer's heat, Leon's readers find this latest installment in a very successful series to be just what the doctor (or policeman) ordered: Leon at her best. A taut, tersely written tale that reaffirms our faith in this very popular author, whose talents and abilities in this genre keep producing winners!

Before Brunetti can take this family on vacation, needless to say, a murder is announced, to quote Miss Marple.

And, as usual with the Leon series, subplots support the storyline quite smartly. Inspector Vianello's aunt in mixed up with a charlatan horoscope guru; a corrupt judicial system is wrecking continued havoc and injustice as some judges become suspect; and the ramifications of the central murder are ever-widening. As usual Leon touches upon important social issues (the environment, illegal immigration, the country's governmental and financial corruptions) and blends these into her narrative cleverly and smoothly, never detracting from the bigger picture: who done it and how are we going to make the arrest?

Crime, Brunetti says, is usually reduced to money, money, money or sex, sex, sex, with Greed playing the major role. As Brunetti's friend Brusca tells him, as he's revealing details about the judicial system's "irregularities": "It's strange. We think that love of music can run in families, or maybe the ability to paint. So why not greed?" And greed it is.

Then when the murder occurs, an official within the court system, there are more complications. An enigmatic, totally dedicated civil servant Araldo Fontana is found bludgeoned to death in the courtyard of his apartment building. It is left up to the incorruptible Brunetti and his team to work through the maze of misinformation, disinformation, lies, deceit, cover-up, and even a couple of red herrings. Along the way, Leon's set of the "usual suspects" are there to impede the progress and these include his boss Vice-Questore Patta and the ever-pugnacious Lt. Scarpa. And, it seems, an indictment of the entire Italian bureaucracy. As Leon says, "It was seldom, after all these years, that Brunetti could be moved to indignation by some new revelation of the skill with which his fellow citizens managed to slip around the edges of the law. In some instances...he felt grudging admiration for the ingenuity employed...." This isn't to say that he ever gives up, which is the appeal of his character, alongside his intellect, his tolerance, and a fine sense of humor.

Brunetti, as always, is finely supported by his wife Paola and his two children, and none of the Leon books would be complete without Signorina Elettra, the most able office manager in the Questura, whose knowledge of the computer and the Internet--and what she can do with them--make her invaluable. But she's more than this. A character who holds her own, she notes that "A man without a sense of fashion is a man without a soul." Brunetti, moralist that he is, moves to subscribe to Signorina Elettra's philosophy: that "dishonesty is in proportion to how much trust you are betraying, not to the lie you actually tell." Brunetti throughout his career has felt it necessary to work in shades of gray and not black and white.

Leon's theories about motive (greed, love, money, sex) come to fruition all in good time. One of the many pluses of her writings is the fact that she's not afraid to confront such issues in Italy (She told me in London a couple of years ago that her books weren't translated into Italian, perhaps for good reason!). A resident of Venice (where she's live for 25 years), she clearly has a literary love relationship with the city, even the country, and does not appear to falter in being willing to show these shortcomings. And while she doesn't hesitate to get "involved," her novels never falter in their effectiveness, their readability, their pursuit of what's inherently right. It's such a pleasure to read Donna Leon.

It's always a day brightener for me when Commissario Guido Brunetti & crew come for their annual visit. This 19th in the series is no exception, though not among my favorites. It's more about the miseries of living through a Venetian heatwave--and Leon does a masterful job of making us feel every muggy sweaty miserable degree of it--than it is about solving crimes and sharing the joys, quibbles and fabulous meals of Brunetti's family life.

This time Paola and the kids are away cooling off in the mountains and, of Paola's parents, only her mother makes an appearance, and a brief one at that. Which leaves this story pretty much to Brunetti, Ispettore Vianello and Signorina Elettra, with Patta contributing a couple of notable temper tantrums. As always, there are two cases. The major one centers on the murder of a gay civil servant who may or may not have been in cahoots with a bent judge; the secondary case involves a phony psychic who's bilking old ladies, among them Vianello's aunt. The story moves at a pace befitting enervating heat until, suddenly, we're only a few pages from the end and nothing's been solved and no one's been arrested. The end then comes quickly and is somewhat less than satisfying. I found myself wondering if Leon was herself nearly done in by a heatwave while writing this.

Because the lives of the characters in a Leon novel are as important to the stories as the crime solving, I always recommend reading her novels in as close to chronological order as you can get. Here's the list as of March 2011: "Death at La Fenice," "Death in a Strange Country" "Dressed for Death," "Death and Judgment," "Acqua Alta," "Quietly in Their Sleep," "A Noble Radiance, " "Fatal Remedies," "Friends in High Places," "A Sea of Troubles," "Wilful Behavior," "Uniform Justice," "Doctored Evidence," "Blood from a Stone," "Through a Glass, Darkly" "Suffer the Little Children," "The Girl of His Dreams," "About Face," "A Question of Belief" and "Drawing Conclusions." (Please note: Should you ever come across "The Anonymous Venetian," "A Venetian Reckoning" or "The Death of Faith" know that these are not new Leons; they're just British versions of "Dressed for Death," "Death and Judgment" and "Quietly in Their Sleep.")

"seamlessly blending straightforward descriptions of events, pointed moral lessons, and tightly-focused dramatic accounts, his historiography contains deep, and often pessimistic, insights into the workings of the human mind and the nature of power." Wikipedia on the historical writings of Publius Cornelius Tacitus.

Guido Brunetti -- whose austere view of Italian life, both public and private, underpins this remarkable series -- is reading Tacitus rather than Russian history. His books on Russian history are in the mountains with his vacationing family, while Brunetti swelters around Venice, returning home with a pizza to eat on his terrace "while drinking two beers and reading Tacitus, the bleakness of whose vision of politics was the only thing he could tolerate in this current state." (201)

As the Wikipedia quote suggests (oh come on, tell me you don't short-cut with it) Tacitus manages clarity of narrative and psychological insight while delivering a moral lesson.

So, too, does Donna Leon.

As other reviewers note, most of the loving and entertaining scenes of Brunetti/Falier family life are missing from this book. There are no luscious meals detailed from shopping through prep work, from serving to savoring, from second-helpings to dishwashing. Figs and prosciutto are all we get, and briefly. And yet it is faith in that family-life which constitutes the center holding Brunetti's cosmos intact. Early in the book we hear a shockingly frank rant from Paola about the power of belief over reason. Sparked by the sight of Brunetti's proposed reading on the Russian Revolution, Paola denounces her youthful political ideals in the most brutal yet of her recent self-fashionings:

"To think that I voted Communist. Of my own free will, I voted for them. . . . You know me well enough to know I'm not much for shame or guilt, but I will forever feel guilty that I voted for those people, that I refused to listen to common sense to believe what I didn't want to believe."

Brunetti tries to comfort: "They never had any real power here."

Paola refuses to shelter in that argument: "I'm not talking about them, Guido; I'm talking about me. That I could have been so stupid and have been so stupid for so long."

There is the heart of this narrative, the failure of reason in the face of the desire to believe. The two plots both arise from this moral and intellectual battle, but the third element of the novel - Brunetti's reading - is more obscure than in other of Leon's books.

Looking at the title, I assumed he would be reading Plato. Turning the early pages, seeing Leon set up a series of ethical dilemmas involving the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave, I looked in vain for mention of The Republic.

But Leon is more subtle than that. The sad deceptions we find here - card-readers duping wealthy women, greedy contractors subverting the judicial system, Patta's relentless fetishizing of appearance over reality - aren't worthy of the grandeur of Plato's vision. So Brunetti reads a Roman who critiques Plato and we get devastation at one remove.

Donna Leon's novels offer us many things: glimpses into the lives of the people who actually live in Venice, a complex view of the modern family, the politics of life in a bureaucracy, the architecture of loving friendships. Here she raises the stakes by asking about the nature of reality. How do we know if our desire to know truth leads us to the light of faith -- intellect -- or to the shadow on the cave wall that is belief?

This isn't a beach read, but it would make an excellent airplane book, allowing the reader to follow all of the nuanced plot lines without interruption. I teach a murder mystery class every other Spring semester and this term I taught About Face. While the kids liked the setting and the politics and the family life, they didn't much like the reading that all the characters do. "Too much thinking," they complained. They would like this book even less, at least while they are undergrads. But they will return to the series later in life, at once more jaded and more hopeful, and find it entirely wonderful.

Having read all nineteen books in the Brunetti series, I wanted to describe a few of my reactions to the series so far, and make some comments. To start off: how refreshing it is to see a man who comes home to eat a sit-down meal with his family. Not even just at dinner, but frequently at lunch, as well. Needless to say, this would be practically unheard of in the U.S. Commissario Brunetti is a man who listens; not just to those that he interviews, but also to his family and co-workers. His children intimidate him into taking ultra-short showers, but he luxuriates in long ones when the kids aren't around to bang on the bathroom door. Paola ceaselessly tries to refine his consciousness about women. Ispettore Vianello similarly tries to increase his awareness of environmental issues. And signorina Elettra, well, she realizes the futility of trying to make Brunetti computer literate, but she is constantly surprising him with what one can do online.

Brunetti's relationship with his in-laws appears to improve as the series progresses. He is surprised that the contessa, although religious, is very non-judgmental about the beliefs or non-beliefs of others. Even she is critical of Catholic hierarchy, an attitude that is quite prevalent, not to say universal, in this series. Count Falier, with a patrician name that reaches back centuries in Venice, plays the part perhaps expected by such a man. Comfortable in the highest social circles, able to use his contacts to penetrate secrets of the powerful, he pursues one of the quintessential Venetian virtues: money-making. Disappointed, perhaps, that his only child married beneath her, he increasingly understands what attracted her to Brunetti.

Venice, herself, is accepted as a given. Not a single character that I can recall, ever talks about leaving Venice. No one pretends that Venice isn't crowded with tourists, unbearably hot in August, politically corrupt, and increasingly polluted. Even the idea of plunging into the Grande Canal strikes horror into Venetians. But to want to live elsewhere? No way! Forget about it. It is incredibly amusing to read in some of these reviews that Donna Leon hates Venice, or hates Italy, or disparages Italians. Are we reading the same books?

This is not to say that these books don't express frustration with Italian and Venetian bureaurocracies and politics. On more than one occasion Brunetti considers quitting. But he enjoys his work, at least part of time, and his on-the-job friends do much to keep him on the job. He does have a passion for truth, and he loves getting to the bottom of things. He can have the same doggedness as Sara Peretsky's Vicky Warshawski. Sometimes he has no problem bending, or completely ignoring, the rules. He certainly does not want to give much thought to how signorina Elletra obtains much of the information she provides him. He is deeply pained when the rich and powerful intervene to protect the guilty, as frequently happens in these stories. Sometimes the powers-that-be prevail, but not always.

One of the aspects of the series that I enjoy the most is the picture it portrays of how life is lived in contemporary Venice. What peoples' apartments look like, what they have for breakfast, how they relate to each other at work, what Venetian teenagers are like and how they relate to their parents. It is very difficult as a tourist to really get to know how Italians live their lives. There are books such as Tim Parks Italian Neighbors and Italian Education that are helpful, but I am grateful to a series like this that follows a handful of characters over many situations and circumstances and presents what life is like in Venice.

I'm sitting in chilly Wyoming on the first day of winter, having just finished Donna Leon's most recent book about Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti, which is set in a sweltering August. Perfect! So pervasive is the hot, humid weather on the Venetian canals that it actually becomes a character in the book.

This book is very much a continuation of our relationship with Brunetti, his family, his memorable colleagues, and, to be sure, food. Of course, there is corruption to be addressed (a possibly crooked judge), a murder (a clerk in her court), and a scam involving horoscopes, the elderly, and lots of money. A pretty full plate (so to speak)! And it all sails forward on the greasy August air.

I do recommend this book; it is a good winter escapist read. One thing that is a hallmark of Leon's books is that the criminal isn't always caught, the guilty aren't always punished, and "x" almost never marks the spot. In other words, they are like real life. And yet, there is satisfaction in knowing that Brunetti is always there, doing his best.

And a postscript: if you're stumped for reading material, check out the vacation reading of Brunetti and his wife, Paola.

I've compiled some definitions (hardback page numbers) to help you read through instead of stopping to look up unfamiliar terms:

(throughout) Oddio - Italian exclamation "Oh, God!"

Page 4 Malleus Maleficarum - document from the Spanish Inquisition that
argued for the existence of witches and claimed that women
were more often involved in witchcraft than men
Page 10 tramezzino (pl. tramezzini) - small triangular sandwich
with the crusts removed; staple of Italian lunches
Page 53 edicola - newsstand
Page 54 campo - in Venice, a town square
Page 54 calle - street
Page 65 riva - on the bank of a river or canal
Page 77 mirable dictu - wonderfully amazing!
Page 146 Maria Vergine - this one's pretty obvious - but just in case - Virgin Mary
Page 167 minestra di verdura - vegetable soup
Page 171 traghetto - passenger ferries on the Venice canals
Page 171 aula - meeting room or classroom
Page 171 udienza - a hearing
Page 178 Speck ( ... and mushroom; ... and Gorgonzola) - an Italian pork product
made from hog legs and flavoured with juniper berries
Page 181 liceo - a secondary school in Italy that starts around age 14
Page 201 ruccola - a low-growing herb with green, notched and oblong leaves
and a spicy garlic-mustard taste, also known as "rocket"
Page 211 permesso di soggiorno - residency permit
Page 230 ULSS - unità locale socio sanitaria
English translation: (local health and social care facility/services)
Page 257 finferli - chanterelle mushrooms

Book 19, in Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery series

Ms. Leon is notorious at setting up highly charged atmospheric scenes with a Venetian flair and creating a wonderful cast of characters to go with it. In this latest mystery, we have once again, Commissiario Guido Brunetti dealing with a well-developed bureaucratic system built on stubbornness and corruption.

The story opens with Brunetti looking forward to a summer of fresh mountain air with his family and catching up on his reading. It is to be a well-earned rest away from the debilitating heat and the hordes of tourists that invade his hometown during the peak season. Before leaving, he agrees to help investigate the suspicious activities Inspector Lorenzo's aging aunt seems to be involved with. Apparently her interest in astrology has attracted the attention of a new found friend and Lorenzo is worried because she has been regularly withdrawing large sums of money from her bank. He suspects she may have fallen prey to a swindler and has been duped by the charms of a notorious "faith healer".

On another front, things start to move quickly on cases that have been delayed in court. It is suspected that Judge Luisa Coltellini and Araldo Fontana have been sidelining files for the benefit of one of the parties and reaping the rewards for quite some time. Brunetti knows this practice contributes to the lack of efficiency and ethics of the judiciary system, leaving a black mark on all. Before leaving on vacation he sets in motion a quiet investigation by his team.

His best laid plans and vacation is cut short, when it is learnt that Fontana has been murdered in a violent attack. His quiet investigation explodes and he is brought back in the thick of the action and into the simmering Venetian heat...

I am a fan of this series; the stories are usually refreshing, captivating and have an underlying message. Although interesting, this latest is not one of Ms. Leon's best, I found the plotting lacked suspense and the pacing rather slow moving. Too many minor details bogged down the storyline and the mystery is overshadowed by long descriptions of the culture, the food and the architecture. In this novel or travelogue it appears Ms. Leon has let her love of Venice override her love for writing exquisite mysteries. Some may enjoy it and some may not......

Ah, I have the feeling that this definitely isn't the best book to read as an introduction. I'll probably reread it after I've read a number of the earlier books. While I didn't find the two investigations enthralling, I loved the atmosphere, the criticism of Venetian government and agencies, the literary interests of the characters, and in short just plain enjoyed the entire setting, so I do give this a high rating, but again doubt that it's a good starting point in the series.

A heat wave engulfs Venice in this, the 19th Guido Brunetti mystery, and the Commissario is looking forward to a vacation in the cooler Alps with his family and even makes it onto the train. But four hours into the trip he is called to return to the city to solve the murder of an official involved in a complicated scam. At the same time, Brunetti is attempting to assist his sidekick who fears his favorite aunt is being bilked by a charlatan.

The aunt has delved deeply into astrology and her family has noted that she has been withdrawing money from the bank. Her family's efforts to find out what she is doing with the cash have been to no avail, so Brunetti agrees to surreptiously get to the bottom of the mystery. Also, unofficially, he has been supplied with information that certain cases at the local court are being unduly delayed, usually benefiting one party over another.

This novel is filled with all the charming characters who inhabited those that have preceded it in the series. The atmosphere of Venice is, as customary, portrayed to benefit the reader. And for a mystery novel, the conclusion is truly different. The book is recommended.

It should be noted that simultaneously with this novel, Atlantic Monthly Press has published "Brunetti's Cookbook," with recipes by Roberta Pianaro and culinary stories by Donna Leon. The cookbook recreates many local and seasonal recipes based on meals from the series along with original essays by Donna Leon to give Brunetti fans much pleasure.

If you are not reading Donna Leon's novels with Venice Police Commissario Guido Brunetti, then you are missing out. Leon, an American expatriate residing in Venice, has been writing these mystery novels for almost 20 years. Very reader friendly, there is no need to start with a particular book. In fact, this 19th and latest installment in the series is a wonderful place to begin and quickly acquire an addiction.

A QUESTION OF BELIEF follows the pattern established by its predecessors. The narrative is well-paced, which is not to say fast. In keeping with the sweltering heat and humidity associated with Venice in summer, Leon moves Brunetti slowly but most assuredly through the streets and through his investigation, which of course is never permitted to interrupt the opportunity to eat and drink along the way. Notwithstanding the foregoing, however, Brunetti finds himself gently immersed in two cases that are somewhat outside of his official duties.

He is brought into the first by his friend, Police Inspector Leonardo Vianello, who has become concerned with his aunt's well-being. Vianello's Zia Anita has taken to withdrawing large sums from the bank account of the family business and is apparently using the funds to consult with an astrologist possessed of a shady past, much to the consternation of her family. The elderly woman is not breaking any laws and has a perfect right to do what she is doing. The family is nonetheless concerned that she is being taken advantage of, and Brunetti, at Vianello's request, utilizes the resources of the Venice police to follow Zia Anita to determine precisely what she is doing and with whom. The method by which Brunetti diverts police resources to do this is worth the price of admission to A QUESTION OF BELIEF all by itself.

The second case is brought to Brunetti by Toni Brusca, a friend of Brunetti's who is the head of the department of the Venetian municipal employment records. Brusca's inquiry involves an enigma in the scheduling and disposition of civil cases. It appears that the cases assigned to one judge in particular, Judge Colettini, are taking a particularly long time to be heard and decided upon, with the delay possibly deliberately accruing to the benefit of one of the parties. There also appears to be some collusion, professionally and possibly personally, between the judge and Araldo Fontana, a longtime clerk of the court who is in charge of transporting the case files to and from the courtrooms. Brunetti sets Signorina Elettra, the lovely and extremely competent administrative assistant for his office, onto the task of some quiet and off-the-books Internet research into the backgrounds of both the judge and the clerk.

None of this is expected to set anyone's pulse pounding rapidly. Corruption? In the Italian government? How could this be? Yet the quality of Leon's word craft is such that the reader is involved and caring from the first page onward, making even something so mundane as Brunetti's dinnertime conversation with his wife and children concerning their upcoming vacation amusing and interesting. Things kick up a notch when that family vacation actually begins. Brunetti and his loved ones are on the train, looking forward to a week in the cooling elevations of Glorenza, when he is called back to Venice. A violent murder has occurred and it is directly linked to one of his investigations held in abeyance for his vacation. Brunetti's interrogations into the matter, conducted gently but firmly, reveal one tragic secret after another. And when an unexpected incident in the coroner's office sheds light on Brunetti's other investigation, it appears that the low-key but quietly dogged commissario will be able to join his family for the remainder of their vacation after all. Perhaps.

You won't find an abundance of violence here. Instead, you can expect clever plotting, solid characterization and fine storytelling. If you are wondering why Time named Leon one of the top 50 mystery writers, then A QUESTION OF BELIEF will answer that question conclusively.

Usually as soon as I finish one of Donna Leon's Brunetti books I already grouse that it will be a year before she publishes another one. I just finished "A Question of Belief" and while for some other writer it would be 5 stars it isn't her best. The chief problem is that the main character is the August heat. I am glad I wasn't reading this in August in New York it would be unbearable. The main complaint is that there isn't enough of Paola, Patta Elettra etc. Even the con man isn't really well developed. I just reread one of her earlier books and it is much better.