Death in a Strange Country - Softcover

Donna Leon

3.93

18,052 ratings by Goodreads

9780330337717: Death in a Strange Country

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330337718 ISBN 13: 9780330337717

Publisher: Pan Books Ltd., 1995

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'The body floated face down in the murky water of the canal. Gently the ebbing tide tugged it along towards the open waters of the laguna that spread out beyond the end of the canal-'Early one morning Guido Brunetti, commissario of the Venice Police, confronts a grisly sight when the body of a young man is fished out of a fetid Venetian canal. All the clues point to a violent mugging, but for Brunetti robbery seems altogether too convenient a motive. Then something very incriminating is discovered in the dead man's flat, something which points to the existence of a high level cabal - and Brunetti becomes convinced that somebody, somewhere, is taking great pains to provide a ready-made solution to the crime.

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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. It was after a period in Saudi Arabia, which she found ‘damaging physically and spiritually’ that Donna decided to move to Venice, where she has now lived for over twenty years.

Her debut as a crime fiction writer began as a joke: talking in a dressing room in Venice’s opera-house La Fenice after a performance, Donna and a singer friend were vilifying a particular German conductor. From the thought ‘why don’t we kill him?’ and discussion of when, where and how, the idea for Death at La Fenice took shape, and was completed over the next four months.

Donna Leon is the crime reviewer for the London Sunday Times and is an opera expert. She has written the libretto for a comic opera, entitled Dona Gallina. Set in a chicken coop, and making use of existing baroque music, Donna Gallina was premiered in Innsbruck. Brigitte Fassbaender, one of the great mezzo-sopranos of our time, and now head of the Landestheater in Innsbruck, agreed to come out of retirement both to direct the opera and to play the part of the witch Azuneris (whose name combines the names of the two great Verdi villainesses Azucena and Amneris).

From AudioFile:

To solve the murder of a young American soldier, commissario of Venice police Guido Brunetti encounters investigational constraints that leave him awed and embittered. Anna Fields's narration resonates with the emotional upheavals Brunetti feels as he conforms to police procedures that leave him stonewalled. Fields cautiously portrays the cast of characters, differentiating each one uniquely. We sense the sinister and innocent via her mediated expression, and appreciate the difficult case Guido Brunetti has undertaken. B.J.L. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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