Doctored Evidence: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery: 13 (The Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries) - Softcover

Leon, Donna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802146015 ISBN 13: 9780802146014

Publisher: Black Cat, 2013

Synopsis

When the body of an wealthy elderly woman is found, brutally murdered in her Venetian flat, the police suspect her maid, who has disappeared. As the runaway maid's train is leaving Italy for Romania, she is approached by the border police, runs away, and is killed as she crosses the tracks in front of an oncoming train. She has a considerable sum of money on her and her papers are obviously fake. Case closed. But when the old woman's neighbor returns from a business trip in London, it becomes clear that the maid could not have committed the crime. Commissario Guido Brunetti decides - unofficially - to take the case on himself. As Brunetti learns more of the victim's bad character, it appears that the crime may not be motivated by greed after all.

About this title

Review:

Doctored Evidence is every bit as impressive as any previous outing for the urbane Commissario Brunetti we've encountered--and reading a Donna Leon novel is almost as good as a trip to Italy, so evocative is the ex-pat of her adoptive country. Not that Signor Berlusconi would necessarily approve of the multiple levels of Italian corruption and double-dealing that Leon has strip-mined for her unflappable copper to take on--and her view of the other dark sides of Italy strays quite some way from the tourist's point of view.

Here, Brunetti seems to have come up against an open-and-shut case; a well-heeled Venetian is found bloodily murdered in her flat, with her missing maid, a Romanian immigrant, the prime suspect. The maid is tracked down, but meets a violent end on a railway track attempting to escape. Needless to say, Brunetti doesn't takes things at face value and when it transpires that the money found on the maid has not been stolen, this (along with other factors) has Brunetti doing a little unofficial sleuthing, and uncovering a very tangled web of motives indeed--with revelations quite different from the attempts to cover up municipal shenanigans that have often been the worm in the bud of previous Brunetti cases.

By now, we're all very comfortable with the Commissario and his dogged head-butting at complacent institutions. But Leon is not one to rest on her laurels--there are new elements here (notably in the brilliantly orchestrated final chapters) that take us into new territory. But all the things we love about this series are firmly in place: vivid, acutely detailed locales, the usual exemplary characterisation (not just of Brunetti--the whole dramatis personae here is spot-on); and of course that impeccable plotting. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

"The detective's humane police work is disarming, and his ambles through the city are a delight." --The New York Times Book Review

"An elegant puzzle, as a character study and as a story of an officer's need to reclaim truth in all its complexities from those who want to find easy answers to life's, and death's, perplexing mysteries." --The Washington Post Book World

"Brunetti once again charms his devotees, and fans of Leon will not be disappointed as she crafts yet another expert mystery." -- The Baltimore Sun

"Though the case seems solved, Brunetti tries to uncover the real killer amid stifling heat and intra-office jealousy that is poisonous for him, but vastly entertaining to the reader.... Deeply satisfying and often very funny." --The Miami Herald

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

"A good old-fashioned mystery. . . . But there is something more to [the novel] than a murder and a search for whodunit- a subtle critique, through Brunetti's eyes, of a society far along in the process of decay." --Philadelphia Inquirer

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Cat
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0802146015
• ISBN 13: 9780802146014
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304