The Girl of His Dreams - Softcover

Leon, Donna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143115618 ISBN 13: 9780143115618

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2009

Synopsis

Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries have won legions of fans for their evocative portraits of Venetian life. In her novels, home-cooked food, family, renaissance art, Italian history, and local politics play as central a role as an unsolved crime. The Girl of His Dreams opens with a major event in Brunetti's family, and keeps the theme of family close to the fore.

When a friend of Guido Brunetti's brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work in Africa, calls on the Commissario with a request, Brunetti suspects the man has hidden motives. An American-style Christian sect has begun meeting in private homes in the city, and it's possible the priest is merely apprehensive of the competition. Nevertheless, Brunetti and his wife, Paola, decide to go undercover. But when a girl's body is found floating in a canal, Brunetti must put everything aside to investigate the secretive world of her people, the gypsies, who exist on the fringes of society. Thought provoking, eye opening, and profoundly moving, The Girl of His Dreams is classic Donna Leon--and a spectacular, heart-wrenching addition to the series.

"A showcase of nuanced characterization, acute observation and seamless plotting."--The Washington Post

About this title

Review:

Donna Leon s engaging books have been the cheapest way to travel to Italy for quite some time -- and her legion of admirers know that the Venice of her protagonist Commissario Brunetti is a wonderful destination for the crime fiction lover. Leon, an American expat who now lives in la Serenissima (with such luminaries as opera singer Cecilia Bartoli as one of her friends) has gone native in no uncertain terms. Her knowledge of Brunetti s water-logged beat is transmuted into vivid and evocative narratives: the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge are often the dark passageways to another, darker Italy, where hidden (and not-so-hidden) corruption in politics and daily life is very much an everyday thing (as headlines in the papers not just in Donna Leon s books remind us on a daily basis).

The Girl of his Dreams demonstrates how much life is left in the Leon/Brunetti criminal world. A child s body is found floating near some steps on the Grand Canal it is that of a dead girl. But there have been no reports of missing children -- and the search for the identity of the youthful victim and her family takes Brunetti to many varied destinations, including a Gypsy encampment on the mainland, and (eventually), he turns up some very nasty secrets. As ever, it s not just the villains who thwart Brunetti at every turn it s the venality and clandestine nature of the establishment that hampers him, almost as a matter of course.

This is Leon on effortless form Brunetti fans need not hesitate. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

a Gorgeously written . . . the seventeenth book in this superlative series restates Leonas themes with more intensity than usual.a
aMarilyn Stasio, "The New York Times Book Review"

" Gorgeously written . . . the seventeenth book in this superlative series restates Leon's themes with more intensity than usual."
-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0143115618
• ISBN 13: 9780143115618
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 290