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Trace Elements

ebook
3 of 3 copies available
3 of 3 copies available
The New York Times–bestselling author of Unto Us a Son Is Given continues “one of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever” (The Washington Post).
 
When a dying hospice patient gasps that her husband was murdered over “bad money,” Commissario Brunetti softly promises he and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that the man had worked in the field, collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice’s water supply, and that he had recently died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Piecing together the tangled threads, Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when he reads Aeschylus’s classic play The Eumenides.
 
Praise for Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti Mysteries
 
“[Leon] has never become perfunctory, never failed to give us vivid portraits of people and of Venice, never lost her fine, disillusioned indignation.” —Ursula K. LeGuin, author of Dancing at the Edge of the World
 
“You become so wrapped up in these compelling characters. . . . Each one is better than the last.” —Louise Erdrich, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
 
“Leon’s Venetian mysteries never disappoint, calling up the romantic sights and sounds of La Serenissima even as they acquaint us with the practical matters that concern the city’s residents.” —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
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 27, 2020
      At the start of bestseller Leon’s thought-provoking 29th mystery featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti (after 2019’s Unto Us a Son Is Given), Brunetti and his colleague, Commissario Claudia Griffoni, are called to a hospice at the request of 38-year-old Benedetta Toso, who’s dying of cancer. Though Benedetta isn’t fully lucid, Brunetti and Griffoni learn that she suspects foul play in the recent death of her husband, Vittorio Fadalto, a water distribution technician employed by the firm Spattuto Acqua. Vittorio drowned when his motorcycle went off the road, yet he had a reputation for careful behavior when it came to safety. His wife hints that Vittorio was involved in something dishonest, and the expert online sleuthing by a colleague of Brunetti’s uncovers disturbing financial transactions. Brunetti sets out to examine employee activities at Spattuto Acqua, which is charged with maintaining the integrity of Venice’s water supply. As usual, Leon adroitly portrays the complex questions of what constitutes justice and the sad consequences that can result from its pursuit. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Susanne Bauknecht, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland).

    • Booklist

      Starred review from February 1, 2020
      Throughout her acclaimed Guido Brunetti series, Leon has brilliantly melded topical social issues with timeless considerations of human imperfections and the dilemmas they generate. Here she does so again with a meditative novel that looks at the water crisis in Venice?not flooding this time, but pollution?set against the eternal problem of justice. When police commissario Brunetti and his colleague Claudia Griffoni are summoned to the deathbed of a woman whose husband has recently died, apparently in a car accident, they are told, by the dying woman, that "bad money" killed her husband. Is there a crime to be investigated, is this merely a family tragedy? Naturally, Brunetti digs into the matter and finds that the dead man, whose job involved testing the waters in Venice's canals for contamination, may have uncovered a scandal that could threaten every Venetian. A motive for murder? Or blackmail? Answering those questions, as so often happens in this series, leads to larger and more ambiguous questions, this time about "that beast, justice." Turning to Aeschylus' The Eumenides for clarity, Brunetti finds that our moral muddles have been with us for more than 2,000 years. This isn't the first time Brunetti has been forced to decide "which crime to punish, which to ignore," but the burden of that decision has never been greater. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: In an age where so many seek simplistic and wrongheaded answers to complex questions, it is comforting that Leon, in celebrating human complexity, remains one of our most beloved writers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2020

      Venice Commisario of Police Guido Brunetti and his partner Claudia Griffoni are called to the bedside of a dying woman as this latest outing (after Unto Us a Son Is Given) begins. When they arrive at the hospice, the patient is only able to tell them that her late husband, who supposedly died in a motorcycle accident, was killed over "bad money." She dies before she can tell them more. They investigate and learn the husband had worked at a company that monitored water quality in the area and was noted for his rectitude. Braving the summer heat, the detectives keep digging in an effort to find out what money the wife was talking about and if--and why--someone might have wanted her husband dead. The heat and blinding sunlight reflecting off the buildings and water become characters, too, in Leon's well-crafted, atmospheric mystery. VERDICT Fans of the series will enjoy this new adventure. [See Prepub Alert, 8/19/19.]--Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green

      Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Library Journal

      October 1, 2019

      In the 29th Comissario Guido Brunetti mystery from CWA Macallan Silver Dagger winner Leon, Brunetti receives a call from Dottoressa Donato announcing that a patient on her deathbed wishes to speak with him. The dying woman can barely utter the words "They killed him....Bad money," but this information leads Brunetti to a bigger case that threatens the entire Veneto. Adding to the two million copies of Leon's books sold in North America alone.

      Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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