So Shall You Reap

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It seems that the Commissario’s case load is light at present as he’s able to devote virtually his full attention to this case, aided by his colleague Claudia Griffoni. Claudia has made regular appearances in recent instalments and the fact that she is a native of the southern city of Naples provides an ideal vehicle for the author to explore the potential for suspicion and discord between people from the different regions of this culturally diverse country. It’s not that Guido and Claudia aren’t friends – they are – it’s just that one has the benefit of being able to chatter away to the locals in Veneziano whilst the other is perceived to be a shifty Neapolitan, unworthy of the same degree of trust. The good news is that she ages him – so there is a sense of realness about her characters, which makes him and others believable. Brunetti] is a superb police detective—calm, deliberate, and insightful as he investigates with a reflective thoroughness.”— Library Journal

This is the most disappointing of the 32 books, for me, but many others sincerely enjoyed it, so it may just have been the mood I was in while reading, and perhaps I'm too critical. The Donna Leon chronology starts with her debut novel, Death at la Fenice. She started writing her Commissario Brunetti series in the early 1990s. She published her first novel in 1992 after 8 months of writing her story. The book made Donna Leon into a bestselling author. She wrote her debut novel on a whim. While at the Opera House La Fenice, she got the idea to write a book just to see if she could write it. She was in her late 40s, and at the insistence of her friends, she submitted the manuscript at a contest in Japan, and much to her surprise, she was a winner of the Japanese Suntory prize. Wandering Through Life” contains some standout chapters, including one on how bees and beekeeping played an integral role in the plot of the Brunetti novel “Earthly Remains” (2017), and another in which Ms. Leon, now 80, ruminates on “the other end of life.” But although Ms. Leon’s slim memoir proves warm, witty and engaging, some readers and most fans will be left wanting more. She offers an overview of her life rather than an in-depth trawl through it.

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Donna Leon provides another delectable slice of the thoughtful policeman’s life at work and at home—where his wife, Paola (an expert on Henry James), keeps him and their two children, Chiara and Raffi, on their toes. So Shall You Reap is as witty and wise as anything Leon has written. To read her is to restore the soul.”— Mark Sanderson, Times (UK) I’ve been a big fan of the Guido Brunetti series and have made my way through the first 24 of them. Thanks to Netgalley, I’m jumping ahead to So Shall You Reap, # 32 in the series. It’s also the first of the series I’ve read, rather than listened to. It works just as well in either format. The beauty for me in these books is in the little things, the details of everyday life and small interactions between the city’s people. An atmosphere is created of a place unchanged on the surface but ever changing underneath. Brunetti harbours a certain resentment in respect of the incremental changes ongoing in this place, but isn’t that true of all of us as we reach a certain age? And as the story settles into the investigation of a recognisable crime, he gathers those police officers close to him (characters well known to regular readers) and, between coffees, they ruminate on possible motives and root around to discover information that might lead them to a suspect. As always, it’s beautifully done and once more I experienced a pang of regret when I reached the story’s end and had to say farewell to these people and this place until (hopefully) the next book in the series is published. Even though I have only read these two books, I have come to notice an underlying theme beyond the mystery itself. And although at some point that theme pretty much gives away the solution to the murder, the book is still a delight to read. For those who know Venice, or want to, Brunetti is a well-versed escort to the nooks, crannies, moods, and idiosyncrasies of what residents call La Serenissima, the Serene One . . . Richly atmospheric, [Leon] introduces you to the Venice insiders know.”— USA Today

She tells of the ambitious build of a gondola by an American, and the detrimental effects on the city of the continuous engine vibration of exhaust-emitting cruise ships. She comments on post office efficiency, and her own criminal imagination of those she observes around her, and she shares a letter to Brunetti tourists that she was asked to write by the Questura. At one stage I just thought that some of the writing was a little poor compared to the other books in the series. Commissario Brunetti’s investigations place Donna Leon very high in the hierarchy of crime writing.” — Le Figaro (Paris)

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Donna Leon is the undisputed crime fiction queen . . . Leon’s ability to capture the social scene and internal politics [of Venice] is first-rate. (Baltimore Sun)

Eventually she arrived in Italy where she fell in love with the people and the country and made it her home. Donna Leon guides us through Venice like James Ellroy through Los Angeles or Manuel Vázquez Montalbán through Barcelona: with an eye used to detect what lies behind the façade.” — Le Figaro (Paris) In this story, he starts out where he would rather be culling his crowded bookshelves than heading off to the mainland to retrieve one of their policemen, who’s somehow been caught up in a protest march that has turned violent.There is no better literary tour guide to Venice and the surrounding landscape than Leon, and each entry provides complex, memorable characters and storylines that touch the moral center of the human spirit . . . So Shall You Reap is authentic throughout and lives up to the lofty reputation that Donna Leon has rightly earned for this series, which never fails to enlighten with each new intriguing mystery.”— Book Reporter Besides writing books, the author loves Baroque music, especially Handel. She is a patron of the orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro. She also holds locally crime writing masterclasses in Switzerland, which are usually quite soon fully booked. Praise for Donna Leon As a young woman, Donna Leon taught English Language abroad in places like the Middle East and China. She delighted in experiencing foreign cultures and this gave her the desire to always travel and explore the world around her. It was when she accompanied her friend on a trip to Naples, Italy, that she felt truly at home and did not want to leave. This led to further exploration of the country and falling in love with the very same Venice where she eventually relocated to and based her beloved long-standing series within. There’s no denying that Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries_ Are well written in a manner that eliminates the extraneous without becoming showily stoic.” —Charles Taylor, Bloomberg Brunetti had no trouble making the translation from police vocabulary to reality. ‘Violence? Alvise?’