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Loading... Vendetta: Commissario Brunettis vierter Fall (1995) (original 1995; edition 1995)by Donna Leon, Monika Elwenspoek (Übersetzer)
Work InformationA Venetian Reckoning by Donna Leon (1995)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. While I like the mystery and the main character in this series, I find it a bit depressing that Donna Leon’s Death and Judgement is Book #4 of her very popular Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series. It is a very complex, very interesting, well-crafted plot. Our main character is Commissario Guido Brunetti, He is an excellent policeman and detective and a man with a very deep, moral, ethical character. (His very moral and compassionate character must be a curse at times in Italy’s very complex culture, where it seems even the most commonplace transaction is frought with corruption and possible criminality.) As usual, the city of Venice with its history and atmosphere is also a main character. Death and Judgement is a very tense, difficult and dark read. It will take me a long time to get over the ending. ***** A murder mystery with an ethical thread. Men who deal in trafficing women for prostitution and who order, purchase and distribute tapes of rape and murder of women in war-torn places. All three men are murdered by an appalled female accomplice when she finds what the tapes contain. There is a line some will not cross when others do not even see it. The novel starts with a tragedy - a truck driver loses control while coming down the mountains and it turns out that the truck has a few too many passengers - trafficked women from Eastern Europe end up dead on the mountain slopes. And then everyone forgets about them until they tie into the death of an important lawyer. In some ways this is one of the darker entries in the series - human trafficking and women abuse are never an easy topic and these lie at the heart of this novel. It is also a bit more explicit than the rest of the entries. The story ties with the Yugoslavian wars (in the worst possible ways). But the novel still has Venice as its main character - but even it is subdued under the horrors which people can inflict on other people. Brunetti and the Traffickers Review of the Grove Press paperback edition (April 2014) of the original Harper Collins hardcover (June 1995) This one was disturbing and its brutal segments did not bear looking at, so TW. Brunetti is drawn into the horrors of human trafficking, prostitution and worse in this slowly building investigation. The cold open is away from Venice entirely and is a matter of fact record of a trucking accident where a human cargo is discovered. Brunetti is called in when a lawyer is murdered on a train in what is, at first, suspected to be a robbery. Gradually more complications and doubts arise as a suspicious widow, a questionable accountant, and a duplicitous lawyer are interviewed. Brunetti's daughter Chiara is drawn into the case due to her familiarity with the murdered lawyer's daughter, but is horrified by her discoveries. See image at http://www.fictionalcities.co.uk/brunettitv1.jpg Front entrance of the Questura (Police Headquarters) in Venice, Italy [actually the former convent of San Francesco della Vigna] in a film still from the German television adaptation of "Death and Judgment" (2000). Image sourced from Fictional Cities. Trivia and Links There is a really fascinating interview with author Donna Leon at ItalianMysteries.Com even if it was done 18 years ago. She discusses all sorts of background to the books and characters and also gives the reason that she won't allow the books to be translated into Italian (and it wasn't because she feared criticism by her neighbours in Venice). Although it was the 4th book, Death and Judgement was filmed as the 1st episode "Vendetta" (2000) of the German language TV series (2000-2019) based on the Donna Leon / Commissario Brunetti series. There is an extended series of clips from the episode with actor Joachim Król as Commissario Brunetti and actor Michael Degen as Vice-Questore Patta on YouTube here (in German language, but you can turn on auto-translate for various languages including English). An English language summary of the German language Commissario Brunetti TV series is available at Fictional Cities (Spoilers Obviously). As explained in the above interview, the TV-series was a German production as the books took off in popularity the most in the German speaking countries of Europe as Leon's publishing agent was Swiss-German and knew that market the best. no reviews | add a review
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A truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the laguna. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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