Blood from a Stone - Softcover

Donna Leon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0434013099 ISBN 13: 9780434013098

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2005

Synopsis

On a cold Venetian night shortly before Christmas, a man is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses to the event are the tourists who had been browsing the man's wares before his death - fake handbags of every designer label. Officially termed a venditore ambulante or extracomunitario, the dead man was working as a vu cumpra, one of the many Black Africans purveying goods outside normal shop hours and without work permits. Arriving on the scene, Commissario Brunetti's response matches that of everybody involved: why would anyone kill a vu cumpra? With few social connections and little money, in-fighting amongst these workers is the obvious answer. But once Brunetti begins investigating this Venetian underworld, he discovers that matters of great value are at stake within the immigrant society. Warned by Patta, his superior, to resist further involvement in the case, Brunetti only becomes more determined to unearth the truth behind this mysterious killing. However, reluctant as he is to let this event be smugly relegated to the category of 'not worth dealing with', how far will Brunetti be able to penetrate the murky subculture of Venice's illegal community?

About this title

Review:

The latest of Donna Leon's novels about principled Venetian cop Brunetti, Blood from a Stone is one of her timeliest. Two mysterious white men carry out a professional hit on one of the Somali traders who illegally hawk counterfeit luggage in a local square, and for some reason, Brunetti's superiors are remarkably keen that the case be left unsolved. Is this mere casual institutional racism, or something even more sinister? Brunetti, like many other fictional policemen, has no particular gift for obedience to unreasonable orders, and has also a left-wing academic wife to prod his already active conscience. Donna Leon is not usually as political as she is here; this is one of her more biting thrillers in its indictment of international trade and the security state.

Brunetti has rarely been this melancholy--this is a thriller set in the dead of a Venice winter, and the cold, wet winds eat into our bones as we read. ---Roz Kaveney

Review:

"The fabulous Donna Leon" (Antonia Fraser Spectator)

"The thoughtful and charming [Brunetti] is on top form... His nicely balanced world...is cumulatively engrossing" (Sunday Times)

"Donna Leon has a wonderful feel for the hidden evils that lie below the façade of the magical city" (The Times)

"[Leon's] passion for all things Venetian - churches, palaces, statues and especially the food - comes over loud and clear... No one writes about the grey areas of life better" (Guardian)

"It would be simply perverse not to acknowledge the skill with which Leon has assembled these familiar elements... The reader comes to look forward to Paola's elegant Venetian lunches as much as Brunetti does...Comfort reading of the highest order" (TLS)

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0434013099
• ISBN 13: 9780434013098
• Binding: Paperback