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4.0 out of 5 stars
Cynical Digging Pays Off, Aug 31 2007
If you liked Death at La Fenice, the debut of this series, you'll probably like the first 80 percent of Death in a Strange Country even better. Seldom have I experienced the joy of seeing most of the second novel in a series far exceed the debut. Unfortunately, the last 20 percent isn't nearly as good as the ending of Death at La Fenice so you will conclude on a down note.
A body floats facedown in a Venetian canal, bumping against the steps of the embankment in front of the Basilica of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. No one notices the corpse until an early rising woman peeks out to see if her husband's boat needs to be bailed out. I'm sure you can feel the rich setting that Donna Leon has wonderfully described for the beginning of the investigation. When no one can be roused on the night shift, Commissario Guido Brunetti is called at home and grumpily heads to the scene. Finding American coins in the deceased's pockets, Brunetti immediately knows he has a hot potato on his hands. Vice-Questore Patta, his superior officer, makes that point even more obvious by poking his nose into the case soon after the beginning.
When the autopsy reveals someone with expert knife skills has dispatched the young man with the American coins in his pocket, Brunetti realizes that this may not be a simple murder. The dead man's teeth show American dental work, and the police begin calling hotels but find no one missing. By analyzing some papers in the corpse's pockets, it looks like the man has come from the American base in Vicenza, near Venice. Could terrorism be involved?
Contacting the base, the MPs don't seem very interested that one of their own might be dead. Eventually, they do find that Sergeant Michael Foster, the base's public health inspector, is missing and send his superior officer, Captain Terry Peters, a female pediatrician. Captain Peters identifies Foster and seems unusually upset and inquisitive. What does she know that she's not sharing?
Traveling to the American base, Brunetti is astonished to see the lengths that Americans go to in recreating their home country on foreign soil. He's even more certain that he's being frozen out of the investigation by the Americans. A surprise find at the dead man's apartment seals that impression and makes him wonder when the attractive Captain Peters will spill the beans to him.
Although I am making this sound like this novel is all about the investigation, that's a false impression. Interspaced with the investigation, Brunetti tends to his family, and we learn a lot about their relationships and family culture. I think you'll be charmed by the Brunettis, especially the parents. They get along well and make room for one another. As with Death at La Fenice, Brunetti also has a social evening with his patrician in-laws. You'll have fun watching how Brunetti has a hard time enjoying himself in a casino.
The case seems at a dead end with key witnesses become unavailable. But a surprise resurrects the opportunity. Brunetti rapidly makes progress. The faster he unravels the mystery, the stronger the forces are that he arouses to put pressure on him to stop investigating.
The first 80 percent of the book has everything you might like in a mystery: a troubling case, unclear motives, a lack of suspects, slender clues, an amusing detective, good character development involving the detective and his family, and a delightful setting to contemplate . . . Venice.
If you don't expect much from the book's conclusion, you won't be as disappointed as I was. The quality of the first 80 percent and the excellent ending of death at La Fenice had led me to expect something brilliant. Instead, I found a cynical ending.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
I am a real fan, Jun 26 2007
I enjoyed Donna Leon style of writing, it is original and warm, I also continue to be one of her enormous fan.
"Death In A Strange Country" is an amazing thriller, it brings you close to political corruption, the influence of the criminal world and how the police forces are handicapped at times in solving crimes.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Another winner from Leon, Oct 30 2002
I continue to be an enormous fan of the Commisario Brunetti series. For those of you who may have missed my earlier reviews, Donna Leon teaches English for the University of Maryland Extension near Venice and has lived in Italy for many years. She portrays the flavor of Italian life vividly, and it's clear that while she must love living there, petty and not-so-petty corruption is rampant. She makes delightfully wicked little comments. For example, the Carabineri major, interviewed by Brunetti on an American army post - not base, that's for the Air Force - waxes on about the characteristics of Americans. They tend to be arrogant, of course, but Americans are really too insecure to be truly arrogant, "unlike the Germans." Classic. Brunetti is walking home through "battalions of ravaging tourists who centered their attacks on the area around San Marcos. Each year it grew harder to have patience with them, to put up with their stop-and-go walking, with their insistence on walking three abreast through even the narrowest calles. There were times when he wanted to scream at them, even push them aside, but he contented himself by taking out all of his aggressions through the single expedient of refusing to stop, or in any way alter his course, in order to allow them a photo opportunity. Because of this, he was sure that his body, back and elbow appeared in hundreds of photos and videos. He sometimes contemplated the disappointed Germans looking at their summer videos during the violence of the North Sea storm as they watched a purposeful, dark-suited Italian walk in front of Tante Gerda or an Onkel Franz, blurring, if only for a moment the lederhosen-clad tourists" with what was probably the only real Italian they would see during their stay. An American soldier, Sgt. Michael Foster, an American public health inspector at the American military hospital in Vicenza, has been found floating in one of the Venetian canals. In an act of true heroism, two policemen jump in the water - the water being so dirty, hence the heroism - and drag him out. Brunetti's superior would like nothing better than to have the case buried, because the idea of an American being killed in Venice would ruin the tourist trade. Brunetti purposefully manipulates his boss into thinking the murder might have been committed elsewhere - must think of tourism, of course - so he can be authorized to travel to the man's post and investigate. An army captain, Dr. Peters, a woman doctor, who had come to Venice to identify the body in the morgue, had vomited from what Brunetti thought was from fear, when she saw how the man had been killed, by a knife plunging directly through the ribs into the heart. He suspects something is rather odd about this case, especially when he finds some cocaine that was not well hidden in the dead soldier's apartment, apparently after it had been thoroughly searched by the military authorities. The case becomes more complicated as both he and the Carabinieri major are politely warned off the case after they discover a connection between the dead soldier, a sick boy, contracts for the disposal of toxic waste, Brunetti's father-in-law, and the ostensible suicide by heroin overdose of Dr. Peters, not to mention the theft of some famous paintings from a prominent businessman. As with many of her other books, you are left at the end deeply saddened by the corruption, the illicit use of power and its effect on Brunetti, who, despite all, struggles on trying to stay an honest cop. He is a wonderful character.
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by Donna Leon
by Donna Leon
by Donna Leon
by Donna Leon
by Donna Leon
