Acqua Alta is the fifth in Donna Leon's series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, a Venetian police detective. Brunetti discovers that a friend, archaeologist and Chinese ceramics expert Brett Lynch, has been savagely beaten and is in the hospital. He visits Brett and her lover, opera diva Flavia Petrelli, in the hospital and discovers that, during the beating, Brett was warned not to keep her meeting with Venetian museum Director, Semenzato. When Semenzato is found dead, killed with an ancient brick, Brunetti begins to piece together a mystery surrounding stolen artifacts, sold on the black market in Italy and around the world.

In many ways, Acqua Alta is the most "traditional" of the series to date - a real page turner. The ever-present Italian corruption is present, but mostly as background. Venice is again a major character, but this time is more sinister, as the cold flood waters rise and fall, creating obstacles and ambiance that gives the story a creepier feeling than earlier works. It's nice to see Brett Lynch and Flavia Petrelli again - they were featured in Death at La Fenice and are the primary characters (along with Brunetti) in this book. Overall, a great entry in the Brunetti series. ( )

Another very enjoyable Brunetti episode...a bit less cynical about Italian and Venetian society and government. ( )

Acqua Alta
Donna Leon

5th in the Commisario Brunetti series, set in Venice Italy.

It’s winter in Venice, and the seasonal rains bring with them the threat of flooding, or acqua alta--high water. After waking during the night to the sirens announcing the threat, Brunetti discovers by accident that a friend, Brett Lynch, has been savagely beaten as a warning to avoid meeting with the director of the museum located in the Ducal Palace; 5 years previously, Brett had supervised an exhibition of priceless ancient Chinese ceramics at the museum and had returned to talk with the Director, Semenzato. Then Semenzato is murdered as well. Brunetti’s investigation leads to a wealthy Sicilian who has recently purchased and restored a palazzo not far from where Brunetti himself lives; La Capra is also a lover of classical music and a collector of ceramics.

This is one of the best of the series, my personal favorite, as it has a faced-paced plot and the denouement is the most terrifying in all of Leon’s books; it literally becomes a page-turner, which is rare in this series which depends on strong writing, local ambience, and outstanding characterizations for its strength. The story reunites Brunetti with two fine characters from the first book, Death at La Fenice, the American archeologist Lynch and her diva lover, the soprano Flavia Petrellis; the latter takes a far more prominent role in this book than she did in the first and adds greatly to the strength of the plot.

As in every book, Leon does not rest just on the local color of Venice (following the action through the neighborhoods of Venice on GoogleEarth is really fun), but also weaves in seamlessly the social and political situations in the city, providing an excellent view of Italian life.

An superb installment in the series. Highly recommended. ( )

Leon's Brunetti stories are consistently good. Venice and Venetian food are the stars, with the Brunetti family a close third. The detective element isn't bad either. ( )

#5 Commissario Guido Brunetti police procedural set in Venice, Italy. Guido starts out investigating the assault of Brett Lynch, an American archaeologist/pottery expert who is in Venice visiting her lover, one of the opera singers who was featured in Leon’s first book, Death at La Fenice. Brett is threatened and told not to attend a meeting she had set up with a local museum director to discuss some antiquities that had been in a display from China that she’d spearheaded a couple of years earlier—which she now discovers are fake. There are also some derogatory comments made about her lesbianism by the thugs who beat her up, so she isn’t sure just why she was attacked. When the museum director ends up dead, the necessity of finding the connection intensifies, and Guido digs and investigates while out of doors, Mother Nature provides the usual annual onslaught of ‘acqua alta’ or the torrential winter rains that cause severe flooding throughout the city. I love this series—the characters, the setting, the food, the poetic prose…the only part of these books that sometimes annoys me is the constant background presence of the Mafia, and this book that featured rather heavily. It seems sometimes that it’s just too convenient and too pat a solution to whatever problem is presented. But I still loved it! ( )