Through a Glass, Darkly - Softcover

Leon, Donna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143038060 ISBN 13: 9780143038061

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2007

Synopsis

After coming to the aid of his assistant Vianello's old friend, Ribetti, arrested during an environmental protest, Commissario Brunetti becomes concerned about Ribetti's father-in-law, Giovanni De Cal, a nasty factory owner heard making threats against his son-in law, a situation complicated by the killing of De Cal's night watchman. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

Do the following two things appeal to you? A holiday in Venice, away from the tourist traps, investigating the city's more unusual nooks and crannies? Or trying (by proxy) to solve a particularly mystifying crime case with a variety of intriguing suspects? Well, you don't need either the money the first would require or the police qualifications the latter might need, if you merely shell out the modest outlay for Donna Leon's Through a Glass Darkly, the latest in her always assured Commissario Brunetti novels.

Admirers of these books need no recommendation: they have been amazingly consistent in their development over the years, and have rarely slipped into the overfamiliar--there's no sense that Donna Leon is tired of either Brunetti or his battles with municipal and governmental corruption.

It's spring in Venice, and Commissario Brunetti and his associate Vianello undertake a task not officially sanctioned by the Questura--they will try to do what they can for Vianello’s friend Marco, an eco-activist who has been arrested after an environmental protest turns ugly. Soon after, Brunetti witnesses the almost psychotic enmity of Marco's father-in-law, who almost seems prepared to murder his relative (a fear that Marco's wife shares). The old man's glass factory on Murano, the source of the conflict between father and son-in-law, becomes the scene for a murder: in front of the furnaces which eternally burn at high temperatures, a body is found and Brunetti’s search for the killer is aided by clues found in a volume of Dante.

All of the customary Leon fingerprints are satisfyingly in place here: the sultry and immensely vivid evocation of Venice; the ever-present pall of evil and corruption that suffuses the beauty of the city, and (most pleasurably of all) the careful delineation of character in Brunetti and his associates. This is a series that has a long time to run yet.

--Barry Forshaw

Review:

"Praise for Through A Glass, Darkly:
Venetian life, and Brunetti's model marriage, are as entertaining as the working out of the whodunit. A joy from start to finish." (Evening Standard)

"One of Venice's greatest contemporary chroniclers... The smells, flavours, sights and sounds all come flooding to life. Even though the first crime doesn't happen until well over halfway through, but this doesn't dampen its page-turning appeal... Once again, Leon has her finger on the pulse" (Daily Mirror)

"Operatic brilliance... Donna Leon appears to have the knack of keeping her Venice-set Brunetti books as fresh as paint. Through A Glass, Darkly, like all her work, has the exuberance of a Puccini opera." (Independent)

"A wholly absorbing read." (Sunday Telegraph)

"Praise for Blood From A Stone:
'The fabulous Donna Leon' Antonia Fraser in the Spectator"

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0143038060
• ISBN 13: 9780143038061
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 326