Praise for Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries:

“This endlessly enjoyable series, with its deep thoughts about justice and vengeance and charming classical allusions, can’t help making you smile.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“[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, New York Times

“You become so wrapped up in these compelling characters . . . Each one is better than the last.”—Louise Erdrich, PBS NewsHour

“Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive, and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon . . . One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever.”—Washington Post

“The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti, with his love of food and his loving family, proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities.”—Wall Street Journal

“[Leon] uses the relatively small and crime-free canvas of Venice for rips about Italian life, sexual styles and—best of all—the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface.”—Chicago Tribune

“Hers is an unusually potent cocktail of atmosphere and event.”—New Yorker

“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

“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

“Terrific at providing, through its weary but engaging protagonist, a strong sense of the moral quandaries inherent in Italian society and culture.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Brunetti is one of the most attractive policemen in crime fiction today.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“As always, Brunetti is highly attuned to (and sympathetic toward) the failings of the humans around him.”—Seattle Times

“Leon’s writing trembles with true feeling.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Leon started out with offhand, elegant excellence, and has simply kept it up.”—Guardian

“Compassionate yet incorruptible, Brunetti knows that true justice doesn’t always end in an arrest or a trial.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Brunetti] is a superb police detective—calm, deliberate, and insightful as he investigates with a reflective thoroughness.”—Library Journal

“The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon’s long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an Everyman . . . [his life is] not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life.”—Booklist

“It’s difficult to describe the work of Donna Leon other than in superlatives . . . An annual blessing, a fine series—one of the finest (see what I mean) in the mystery (or any) genre . . . There are few reading joys that equal cracking the binding of a new Leon novel . . . If you have not experienced this world, so exotic and yet so familiar, you can pick up literally any volume in the series and begin a comfortable entry into Brunetti’s Venice.”—BookReporter

“One of the most popular crime series worldwide . . . While the Brunetti books, with their abundance of local color and gastronomic treats, appeal to the fans of the traditional mystery, Leon has something darker and deeper in mind.”—Life Sentence

“No author has delved into Venetian society quite like Leon, whose insider’s view shows how crime seeps throughout the city, touching all strata of society.”—Mystery Scene

He went to the kitchen and returned with one of the paper bags the city distributed to hold paper for collection. He opened it and lowered the Prousts carefully inside, then returned to the shelf, carrying the bag. He set it beside him, knelt again, and glanced more carefully at the remaining books, making a series of visceral judgements, adding the books to the bag without bothering to give them the opportunity to plead for their lives from the temporary safety of Paola’s desk. Moby Dick; The Man of Feeling; I Promessi Sposi, which he’d been forced to read as a student in liceo and had hated. It had survived this long because, until now, he’d lacked the courage to believe a ‘classic’ could be such a bore, but into the bag it went. He came to four volumes of D’Annunzio’s plays and poetry and knew instantly that they were for the bag: was it because he was a bad writer or a bad person? To settle it, he opened one of the books of poetry at ran- dom and read the first line of the first poem his eye fell upon. ‘Voglio un amore doloroso, lento…’

Brunetti’s hand, still holding the book, fell to his side. ‘You

want a love that’s painful and slow, do you?’ he asked the deceased poet. ‘How about fast and painless?’ He bent and picked up the sixteen centimetres of D’Annunzio and tucked them in beside Manzoni. ‘If ever a marriage was made in heaven,’ he said, looking down into the bag, content with his decision. The used book-store at Campo Santa Maria Nova would gladly have them all.

Brunetti studied the empty spaces on the shelf, wondering how he could fill them. Before an answer came, his phone rang. He started to give his name, but a voice he recognized as Vianello’s spoke over his, asking, ‘Guido, can you meet me at

Piazzale Roma?’

‘It’s Saturday, Lorenzo,’ he told his friend and colleague. ‘And it’s raining and it’s cold.’

‘And it’s important,’ Vianello added. ‘Tell me.’

Pausing only long enough to give a heavy sigh, Vianello said, ‘I had a call from Fazio.’ It took Brunetti a moment to recognize the name, a sergeant on the Treviso force and someone with whom both he and Vianello had worked. ‘Alvise’s been arrested.’ ‘

‘Alvise?’ Brunetti asked, unable to disguise his astonishment.

Then, to be sure, he repeated, voice lower but no less shocked, ‘Alvise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘There. Treviso.’

What in God’s name, Brunetti wondered, would Alvise be doing in Treviso? Indeed, what would anyone be doing there, especially on a day like this?

‘What was he doing there?’ ‘He was at the protest.’

Brunetti paused a moment and searched his memory for any protest threatened for that weekend. Not the train drivers, not the remaining No-Vax, not the workers at Marghera – who seemed in a perpetual state of protest – and not medical professionals, who had protested two weeks before.

‘Which one?’

‘Gay pride,’ Vianello said with absolute dispassion.

‘Gay pride?’ Raising his voice, Brunetti repeated, ‘Alvise? We don’t have anything to do with patrolling Treviso,’ he reminded the Ispettore.

‘He wasn’t on patrol.’

‘Then what was he doing there?’

‘That’s why we’re going to Treviso. To find out.’ ‘What happened?’

Over the line came the sound of a vaporetto changing into reverse to slow for a station stop. A voice – not Vianello’s – came over the line: ‘Ca’ Rezzonico.’

Brunetti was already walking towards the door, where he’d left his raincoat and umbrella that morning after coming home from having a coffee and picking up the newspapers.

Switching his phone to his left hand, he felt in the pocket of his raincoat for his house keys. ‘All right. I’ll meet you in front of the taxis,’ he said. Then, before Vianello could disappear, Brunetti asked, ‘What was he arrested for?’

‘Resisting arrest.’

Brunetti could find no words.

‘And violence to a public official,’ Vianello added.

Brunetti had no trouble making the translation from police vocabulary to reality. ‘Violence? Alvise?’

‘Fazio wasn’t sure what happened. He called me when they brought Alvise into the Questura. He asked me to come. And bring you,’ Vianello said.

‘All right. I’m leaving now.’ Brunetti broke the connection.

7. What kinds of relationships does Carlo, the proprietor of the bookshop on Campo Santa Maria Nova, have with his customers? What kinds of insights does he glean from their reading preferences? What does he offer Brunetti about Inesh Kavinda?

8. “The firebrands of social equality and universal justice had moved on to a different world,” Brunetti thinks as he considers the lucrative careers pursued by once-radical friends from his student days, much as his father had once predicted (p. 147). Do you agree with this observation that young radicals eventually age into centrists or even conservatives? Why or why not?

9. What kind of person is Professore Renato Molin? What does he seem to value or appreciate? How does his “adult” persona square with his “student” one?

10. As Brunetti considers the effects of political rhetoric, he recalls an evening hosting university friends whose class-conscious views he particularly admired—and his mother’s stinging criticism of them after they left. Why did Brunetti’s mother find his friends’ words so hollow? What made her “invisible” to them? What parallels, if any, are there to the “invisibility” of the Toulouse statistician whose presentation Signorina Elettra attends?

11. “We knew everything about politics, my friends and I. Even at eighteen, we understood it all,” Vianello tells Brunetti and Griffoni when recounting an incident that nearly derailed his life (p. 219). What combination of factors caused him to behave the way he did? Was he aware of the risks involved? What ultimately saved him?

12. “Young people longed to change the world, regardless of the cost to themselves or others. Older people longed for the world not to change so there would be no cost to themselves” (p. 221). Do you agree with either or both of these statements? In what situations do they best apply? In what circumstances are they reversed, if ever?