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Donna Leon

Author of Death at La Fenice

75+ Works 40,597 Members 1,464 Reviews 94 Favorited

About the Author

Donna Leon was born on September 29, 1942 in Montclair, New Jersey. She taught English literature in England, Switzerland, Iran, China, Italy and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of a Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series. Friends in High Places, a novel from the series, won the Crime Writers show more Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction in 2000. German Television has produced 16 Commissario Brunetti mysteries for broadcast. She was a crime reviewer for the Sunday Times. She has written the libretto for a comic opera and has set up her own opera company, Il Complesso Barocco. Her titles Jewels of Pardise, The Golden Egg, By Its Cover, Falling in Love and The Waters of Eternal Youth made The New York Times Bestseller List. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo credit: Mariusz Kubik, Warsaw, Sept. 27, 2005

Series

Works by Donna Leon

Death at La Fenice (1992) 3,525 copies
Death in a Strange Country (1993) 2,039 copies
Acqua Alta (1997) 1,864 copies
The Anonymous Venetian (1994) 1,770 copies
A Noble Radiance (1998) 1,719 copies
A Venetian Reckoning (1995) 1,626 copies
Uniform Justice (2003) 1,573 copies
Blood from a Stone (2005) 1,560 copies
Fatal Remedies (1999) 1,513 copies
Friends in High Places (2000) 1,511 copies
Doctored Evidence (2004) 1,499 copies
Through a Glass, Darkly (2006) 1,480 copies
The Death of Faith (1997) 1,451 copies
A Sea of Troubles (2001) 1,379 copies
Wilful Behaviour (2002) 1,349 copies
Suffer the Little Children (2007) 1,346 copies
The Girl of His Dreams (2008) 1,323 copies
About Face (2009) 1,196 copies
A Question of Belief (2010) 1,116 copies
Drawing Conclusions (2011) 1,008 copies
The Golden Egg (2013) 916 copies
By Its Cover (2014) 910 copies
Beastly Things (2012) 903 copies
Earthly Remains (2017) 706 copies
The Waters of Eternal Youth (2016) 700 copies
Falling in Love (2015) 694 copies
The Jewels of Paradise (2012) 579 copies
Unto Us a Son is Given (2019) 542 copies
Trace Elements (2020) 480 copies
Transient Desires (2021) 456 copies
Give Unto Others (2022) 360 copies
So Shall You Reap (2023) 265 copies
My Venice and Other Essays (2005) 202 copies
Brunetti's Cookbook (2009) 191 copies
Gondola (1900) 37 copies
Venetian Curiosities (2000) 26 copies
Latin Lover. Von Männern und Frauen (1999) — Author — 12 copies
A Refiner's Fire (2024) 7 copies
Cair de Amores (2017) 4 copies
Le Don du mensonge (2023) 4 copies
Restos Mortais (2017) 3 copies
Acqua alta 1 copy
18 titres 1 copy
Laske lapsukesed olla (2024) 1 copy
Odjur (2022) 1 copy

Associated Works

The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962) — Afterword, some editions — 528 copies
A Venetian Reckoning and Dressed for Death [video] (2002) — Original novel — 8 copies
Fatal Remedies and A Noble Radiance [video] (1997) — Original novel — 5 copies
Quietly in Their Sleep and Acqua Alta [video] — Original novel — 3 copies
By Its Cover [video] (2018) — Original novel — 3 copies
Willful Behavior and Blood From a Stone [video] (2008) — Original novel — 3 copies
La Maga Abbandonata [sound recording] — Author — 2 copies
Through a Glass, Darkly & Suffer the Little Children [video] (2011) — Original novel — 2 copies
Doctored Evidence and Uniform Justice [video] — Original novel — 2 copies
The Girl of His Dreams and About Face [video] (2013) — Original novel — 1 copy
Acqua Alta and Death at La Fenice [video] (2004) — Original novel — 1 copy
Friends in High Places and A Sea of Troubles [video] (2006) — Original novel — 1 copy
Quietly in Their Sleep and Uniform Justice [video] (2005) — Original novels — 1 copy
Death in a Strange Country and Doctored Evidence [video] (2006) — Original novel — 1 copy
About Face [video] (2012) — Original novel — 1 copy
A Question of Belief & Drawing Conclusions [video] (2014) — Original novel — 1 copy

Tagged

American (170) American literature (241) audio (110) audiobook (129) Brunetti (1,111) Commissario Brunetti (841) corruption (175) crime (1,653) crime and mystery (147) crime fiction (1,803) detective (769) detective fiction (201) Donna Leon (211) ebook (457) family (108) fiction (3,227) Guido Brunetti (656) Guido Brunetti series (121) Italy (3,029) Kindle (586) library (117) literature (191) murder (361) mysteries (138) mystery (5,332) mystery fiction (124) noir (109) novel (424) opera (133) own (160) police (182) police procedural (644) policier (185) read (543) Roman (178) series (495) thriller (244) to-read (1,077) unread (141) Venice (4,397)

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1942-09-29
Gender
female
Nationality
USA (birth)
Switzerland (2020)
Birthplace
Montclair, New Jersey, USA
Places of residence
Venice, Italy
Val Müstair, Graubünden, Switzerland
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Occupations
professor (Literature)
novelist
Agent
Diogenes Verlag, Zürich
Short biography
Donna Leon has lived in Venice for about 30 years. She was a lecturer in English Literature for the University of Maryland University College-Europe in Italy, and then a professor at the American military base of Vicenza. She stopped teaching to concentrate on writing and other cultural activities, especially Baroque music.

Members

Discussions

La Serenissima & Dordogne Mystery Read Along in 75 Books Challenge for 2021 (January 2022)
La Serenissima & Dordogne Mystery Read Along in 75 Books Challenge for 2020 (January 2021)

Reviews

In November 2003, a suicide bomber in Nasiriyah, Iraq explodes a truck outside an allied forces military compound that kills 18 Italian servicemembers. That act represents the largest Italian military disaster since World War II and sends the country into a period of deep mourning. Desperate to find a hero in the tragedy, military and political officials settle on a single man—an officer in the Carabinieri deployed at the base—who appears to have risked his life to save two others. However, that appearance proves to be deceptive, and the man soon fades from the collective memory. Twenty years later, modern day Venice is beset with the damaging and violent conflict between rival groups of under-aged youths—baby gangs, they are called—and when one of the gang members turns out to be the son of the Hero of Nasiriyah, it sets off a chain of events that involves mayhem such as blackmail, various physical assaults, arson, and the destruction of ancient artifacts. In A Refiner’s Fire, we see this story unfold and learn how Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleagues at the Venice Questura resolve things.

For me, the real pleasure in reading a new Brunetti novel lies less with the details of the mystery at the heart of the story and more with the incredible sense of time and place that the author creates. Indeed, as has been the case in so many of the previous volumes in this series, the city of Venice—with both its incomparable beauty and its many warts— once again becomes the main focus. Leon’s descriptions of the city as it passes through the changing seasons are simply stunning and so evocative that, for readers familiar with La Serenissima, it is easy to follow along in the footsteps of the people as they go about their daily lives. Beyond that, each new book brings us back in touch with what are by now a beloved collection of characters, starting with Brunetti and his wife Paola, as well as Brunetti’s trusted associates Claudia Griffoni, Enzo Bocchese, and Signorina Elettra in this tale.

As to the actual plot of A Refiner’s Fire, I enjoyed the historical basis for the story, which was a more pronounced feature here than in most of the books that have come before it. The author does a nice job of weaving harrowing facts from the past with some creative modern fictional elements to make a compelling narrative in which the myriad pieces fit together quite nicely. My only quibble (if that is even the right word to use) would be that the ending felt a little rushed given the elaborate set up that preceded it and that not all the plotlines seemed to be fully resolved. Also, while I have always appreciated the thoughtful and allusive way in which Leon chooses the titles for these novels, I thought that this one—with its apparent Biblical reference—was particularly obscure and left me wondering until the very end how it tied into the story. Those minor points aside, this was an extremely satisfying reading experience from a talented author who, having now produced 33 volumes in this series, remains at the top of her game.
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Flagged
browner56 | Mar 10, 2024 |
An excellent procedural. The mystery at the center unfolded gradually and naturally. The commissario at the center of the story was a fairly complex character and the hints of day to day life in Venice were
Great.Especially enjoyed the resolution
 
Flagged
cspiwak | 128 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |
The Venice setting enriches these stories, but it’s the very solid plots and character studies that really make them worth reading…. This one studies family, politics, the military and more and delivers emotional storytelling as well
 
Flagged
cspiwak | 35 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |
This is my first look at the Brunetti series, and I enjoyed it. I'm not sure, though, whether it's because the writing smoothly carried me along, or because I liked Brunetti as a character, or because at the center of mystery are rare books. So I'll try another one sometime. Is this really the 23rd in the series?!
A few favorite passages:
He thought of a story, surely apocryphal, he had once heard about some American movie star - was it Jean Harlow? It was said that when she was given a book for her birthday, she unwrapped it and looked at it, then said, 'A book? I have a book.'
The sun had been crawling across the floor as they sat there, and it now touched the soles of her feet stretched on the table in front of the sofa. She slid down and stretched them farther, wiggling them in the sunlight. 'Oh, that feels good,' she sighed.
Paola obviously had kept some text secreted about her person or under the cushion where she sat, left there in the event that life presented her with the necessity of spending three minutes with nothing to read.
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Flagged
ReadMeAnother | 43 other reviews | Mar 1, 2024 |

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Associated Authors

Michael Sowa Illustrator
Kathrin Richter Screenplay
Ralf Hertwig Screenplay
William-Olivier Desmond Translator, Traduction
Werner Schmitz Übersetzer, Translator
Kristiina Rikman Translator
Tea Mejak Translator
Elsa Frogner Translator
Titia Schuurman Translator
Nenad Patrum Translator
Frans Elsink Translator
Marek Fedyszak Translator
Theo Scholten Translator
Bojana Ilić Translator
Esther Roig Translator
Sinem Gürdal Translator
Lidia Geer Translator
Chin-Yee Lai Cover designer
Dezső Tandori Translator
Koro Navarro Translator
Yuki Oshida Translator
Marek Cegieła Translator
Branka Žodan Translator
Mircea Pricajan Translator
Dezs o Tandori Translator
Marc Rosich Translator
Ю. Жукова Translator
Nenad Patrun Translator
Titia Ram Translator
Didem Hızkan Translator
David Colacci Narrator
Maja Lavergne Translator
Birgit Fuglsang Translator
Anna Roca Translator
Н. Жукова Translator
Fulvio Roiter Photographer
Anna Brzezinska Translator
Motoko Hōjō Translator
Janneke Zwart Translator
David Angel Photographer
Librada Piñero Translator
An de Greef Translator
Maya Denneman Translator
Teresa Solana Translator
Maija Kauhanen Translator
Beatriz Iglesias Translator
Michael Cooper Photographer
Brian Law Photographer
Barbara Auer Narrator

Statistics

Works
75
Also by
19
Members
40,597
Popularity
#433
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
1,464
ISBNs
1,757
Languages
25
Favorited
94

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