Acqua Alta

Aqua Alta by Donna Leon

This early novel in Donna Leon’s .Comissario Brunetti series has been on my tbr list for a long time and a recent reprint allowed me to read it. It was worth the wait. We meet again characters from the first book in the series, 'Death at La Fenice.' Brett Lynch, Art historian and an expert in Chinese artefacts is brutally attacked in the home of her lover, opera singer Flavia Petrelli. While investigating this Brunetti is drawn into the murky world of antiques dealing and fraud.

The plot is quite complex and as usual the detective is hampered by Venetian bureaucracy and corruption in high places. The story takes place against the background of the Aqua Alta or ‘high water’, that period in the Venetian winter show more when both residents and tourists are having to combat flooding and heavy rain. This adds immeasurably to the atmosphere and is a significant factor in the finale.
Meanwhile Brunetti is also having to deal with a variety of problems at home including his wife’s depression over her unresponsive University students.

This story in the Brunetti chronicles has stayed with me, partly I think because the female characters are so strongly written and also because the Aqua Alta is used by the author in such a clever and memorable way. show less

It's amazing how well Donna Leon conveys the viewpoint and preoccupations peculiar to Venice: this time, winter weather and high water mean that people are mostly wet a lot of the time, and can never stop thinking about how to safely navigate a city that is flooded -- not just the water in the houses, but wading out in rubber boots and standing in calf-deep water at the local bar to drink your espresso. (No wonder the northern Italians like it with a shot of grappa.) When Brunetti meets other first responders at the scene of a murder, they exchange notes about where the water is too deep for wading, or where the city has (or has yet to) put up boardwalks. The encroaching uncertainty of Acqua Alta colours the whole book and lends horror show more and suspense to the denouement. show less

The 5th installment of Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series returns characters from the first book of the series to the beautiful Venetian setting and then makes it turn ugly with a vicious beating and death threats.

Guido Brunetti realizes that a friend, Brett Lynch, an archeologist that specializes in Chinese ceramics, has return when he is presented with a report about the vicious assault by men, putting her in the hospital. He gathers information about the beating which was a warning for her to avoid a meeting with the Museum director in Venice, Semenzato. When he is found dead in his office, Brunetti, starts to piece together an intricately woven conspiracy surrounding theft and substitution of rare art objects.
Guido's show more determination to protect his friend and to identify the perpetrators, is documented with the backdrop of the rain season which brings the "high water" (acqua alta) through which Brunetti was wade to find all the clues that finally lead him to the answers he seeks.

If only the real world mysteries could be solved in the same manner by policemen like Commissario Guido Brunetti who often disregards the method of gaining information so that justice can be achieved. I am really looking forward to the next installment. show less

This is the second book of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series that I have read (not the second book of the series, however). One of the things I really enjoy about this book is the wonderful family life that Guido enjoys. I also enjoyed that he did not always follow police procedure. This happened at a point in the book when I found myself wishing that, with all the corruption of the Italian police forces, our hero might have a little misbehavior up his sleeve.

I also liked that the main characters also included a pair of lesbians portrayed as very talented and devoted in a country where homosexuality is not accepted.

What I did not enjoy, is feeling like an outsider sometimes when Italian words weren't translated for the reader. At show more one point a line from an opera was quoted and it felt like it was assumed the reader would know what it meant and how it pertained to the story. It felt like I was being left out of a joke.

And, after reading this book, I really have no desire to visit Venice as spring floods matched with cold miserable weather do not paint an attractive picture. show less

Here is something I really enjoyed about Acqua Alta. The characters from Leon's first Guido Brunetti mystery come back. First introduced in Death at La Fenice, talented opera singer Flavia Petrelli and her lover, archaeologist Brett Lynch, are back five books later, in Acqua Alta. Leon is strategic in how she reintroduces these characters and ties them back to Death at La Fenice. It's as if she reassures the reader Acqua Alta will stand on its own. There is no need to go back and read previous mysteries.
Back to the plot. After Brett is brutally attacked in her apartment, Inspector Brunetti takes on her case. As an American in Venice, Brett seems an unlikely victim of a robbery and yet the attack on her was brutal. It can't be her show more lifestyle; she and Flavia have been flaunting that for two years now. It can't be her nationality; hundreds of foreigners run away to Venice on a daily basis. Brunetti focuses on her career as an archaeologist and soon a picture of corruption and scandal in the art world emerges.
As an aside, the title of the book comes from the phenomenon called acqua alta, the occasionally flooding of Venice. This happens when there is winter torrential rain, unusually high tides (during a full moon) and wind pushing water up from the Adriadic Sea into the Venetian Lagoon. It is important to understand this weather event because the acqua alta is truly another character in the book and crucial to the plot. show less

This installment of the series ties back to the very first novel of the series by re-introducing us back with Brett and Flavia Petrelli. You do not need to have read the first novel but if you had not, you will get some spoilers here. This time it is Brett who gets in trouble - someone shows up at the door and before she realizes what is happening, she is badly beaten with a message being delivered to her: skip your meeting with the museum director. Considering that she had been instrumental in bringing a Chinese exhibition to Venice and there had been some issues with some of the returned artifacts, it is not too hard to figure out that this may be related. The novel ends up tying together a tale of art, forgeries and stolen artifacts show more with a tale of Venice at its worst - when the acqua alta comes and covers the low floors. As is usual, the criminal action almost takes a back seat to the story about Venice - but even the crime is so Venetian than it just can not happen anywhere else. show less

Although Venice's Commissario Brunetti doesn't normally handle robberies, he manages to get himself assigned to the case of Dr. Brett Lynch, who was severely beaten in her home. Brunetti had met Dr. Lynch several years earlier when he investigated the death of a conductor at La Fenice. Dr. Lynch is an expert in Chinese antiquities. She has come to Venice to meet with the director of a museum that had hosted an exhibition of Chinese antiquities several years earlier. The loaned pieces were in her care, and she has recently discovered that the pieces that were loaned were not the pieces that were returned.

This book is a bit different than the previous books in the series since Brunetti is assisting a living victim. Brunetti spends a lot show more of time with Dr. Lynch and her partner, opera diva Flavia Petrelli, and the three of them work together to solve the crime. Seasonal flooding (“acqua alta”) provides a backdrop for the story, with the cold water encroaching into the lower levels of many homes.

This is the most tightly plotted of the books to this point in the series, with Brunetti spending most of his time investigating the crime (when he wasn't battling the flood waters to get to his next interview). I found that I missed his family time and Paola's insightful comments that trigger connections that help Brunetti make progress in whatever case he's working on. show less