About Face: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery - Hardcover

Leon, Donna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802118968 ISBN 13: 9780802118967

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2009

Synopsis

“Leon . . . is so generous with the humanizing details that make this series special. There are long walks in Brunetti’s warm company and lively talks with his clever wife and even more engaging father-in-law, who can see the appetites of a modern consumer reflected in a 17th-century portrait. As detective work goes, it’s a tiny masterpiece of analysis.”―Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

Donna Leon’s eighteen novels have won her countless fans, heaps of critical acclaim, and a place among the top ranks of international crime writers. Through the warm-hearted, perceptive, and principled Commissario Guido Brunetti, Leon’s best-selling books have explored Venice in all its aspects: history and tourism, high culture and the changing seasons, food and family, but also violent crime and political corruption.

In About Face, her latest mystery, Leon returns to one of her signature subjects: the environment, which has reached a crisis in Italy in recent years. Incinerators across the south of Italy are at full capacity, burning who-knows-what and releasing unacceptable levels of dangerous air pollutants, while in Naples, enormous garbage piles grow in the streets. In Venice, with the polluted waters of the canals and a major chemical complex across the lagoon, the issue is never far from the fore.

Environmental concerns become significant in Brunetti’s work when an investigator from the Carabiniere, looking into the illegal hauling of garbage, asks for a favor. But the investigator is not the only one with a special request. His father-in-law needs help and a mysterious woman comes into the picture. Brunetti soon finds himself in the middle of an investigation into murder and corruption more dangerous than anything he’s seen before.

Donna Leon’s readership has significantly expanded with her recent books, including 2008’s The Girl of His Dreams, her most successful hardcover yet. Coupled with a major marketing campaign for new trade paperback editions of key backlist titles from Penguin and audiobooks from BBC America Audio, About Face, an exceptional addition to the series, is sure to take her sales to new heights.

About this title

About the Author

Donna Leon is the author of the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery series. The winner of the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, among other awards, Donna Leon lived in Venice for many years and now divides her time between Venice and Switzerland.

Reviews

Starred Review. With her 18th stellar entry in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series, Leon (Suffer the Little Children) continues to live up to the increasingly high standards set by each novel. Her latest brings the Venetian policeman into intertwining cases involving dangerous environmental hazards: mounting trash heaps and air and water pollution. As usual, the urbane, overeducated, laconic detective circumvents his self-indulgent, self-centered boss and other department dullards to solve a thorny murder case. Leon not only offers superb plotting and engaging dialog, but also captures the atmosphere of Venetian daily life. Thus, Brunetti enjoys frequent, leisurely meals with his wife and children. Leon's evocation of these meals is so delectable that readers feel as though they are participating in the repasts. For readers of literary mysteries, such as those by Deborah Crombie and Elizabeth George. Highly recommended for all public and university libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/08.]—Lynne F. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA
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In this latest installment, Leon returns to Brunetti’s charming, if problematic, domestic life—rather neglected in recent installments—which contrasts vividly with the violent crimes Brunetti must solve, a move applauded by critics who consider the genial, sophisticated Brunetti one of crime fiction’s most engaging detectives. Though Leon’s loving descriptions of life in contemporary Venice can at times displace the plot, she nevertheless heaps on the suspense in this hard-edged thriller. The New York Times Book Review complained of a clichéd story line, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bemoaned Leon’s shrill, preachy tone, but most critics considered About Face an enjoyable romp through modern Venice and a worthy addition to this well-regarded series.
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The 18th installment of Leon's wickedly entertaining series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti (after 2008's The Girl of His Dreams) focuses on garbage, illuminating the author's ongoing concern about the environment. Venice contends with polluted canals and a huge chemical complex. Trash litters Naples' streets. Incinerators in south Italy are full, and trucks laden with toxic waste travel the roads. Brunetti becomes an ecological expert when an investigator with the carabiniere wants him to look into illegal hauling that has resulted in a truck driver's murder. On a personal level, Brunetti's father-in-law asks him to investigate a potential business partner, Maurizio Cataldo. But Brunetti, who's devoted to his wife and children, is more intrigued by Cataldo's much younger second wife, whose once beautiful looks were ruined by a face lift. Leon flawlessly melds the two plot threads as she parallels her characters' vulnerability with that of Venice. 7-city author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In his eighteenth case, Leon’s Venetian commissario Guido Brunetti once again puts human feeling before the need to close cases. And, as always, there are multiple cases to close (or not), each rippling out in many directions, pushing at the lives of both innocent and guilty. It begins with a dinner party at which Brunetti meets a charming and beautiful woman (though, apparently, with a weakness for plastic surgery) who wants to talk about classical Italian literature. Brunetti is taken by the contradiction, a plastic face shielding a scholar’s mind, and finds himself intrigued by the woman’s past—conveniently so, it turns out, when his wife’s father asks him to make inquiries about the woman’s husband, a potential business partner. Meanwhile, a carabiniere investigator needs Brunetti’s help in a case involving the illegal hauling of garbage. Soon the investigator is dead, and Brunetti is following the garbage trail to the doorstep of his Ovid-reading dinner partner. The signature elements of any Leon novel are present here—the island-like tranquility of Brunetti’s domestic life; his ongoing sparring with his bureaucrat boss—but this time the focus is more on the central stories: the mysterious woman and the garbage scandal. Brunetti tackles environmental malfeasance as he does all the other kinds of rampant governmental corruption he encounters, recognizing that full-frontal assaults are never won by individuals against institutions. Instead, he chips away at the edges of the monolith, carving shreds of hope from seeming hopelessness. No wonder we find him such a comforting presence. --Bill Ott

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802118968
• ISBN 13: 9780802118967
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272