Death at La Fenice

The "victim" is a terrible person who is accepted because his work is brilliant. Somehow his wife truly loves him; and he seems to love her. But when she realizes how really terrible he is, she destroys him by destroying his ability to work: losing his hearing means he is no longer able to conduct, or even appreciate music. He understands what she did and tries to frame her for his death. What is most interesting in the story is how the police detective reacts to the solution of the whodunit. He is not a private detective, like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or so many others, who can bend the law because he is not part of it; he works for the police. Nonetheless, he tells the conductor's wife to lie in order to protect her young show more daughter. In this case, the man can do no more harm to anyone; but if his earlier crimes had not been ignored or hidden or blamed on his victim, perhaps he would have been stopped before repeating his actions. Would he have gone to prison? Would he have stopped conducting? Would the world have lost his brilliance? Would his deeds have been just rumors in world of music: Keep your daughters away from the Maestro? How much can/should you separate the man from his work? Like a good Robert B. Parker book, the author leaves you with serious questions. show less

Commissario Guido Brunetti makes his debut in this wonderful mystery set in Venice. World-renowned Maestro Helmut Wellauer is taken suddenly ill after the second act of La Traviata – or so management would have the audience believe. But it’s clear to the doctor who volunteers her assistance that the Maestro is beyond help. In fact, he’s quite dead when she arrives at his dressing room. It quickly becomes clear to Brunetti that there are several possible suspects, and that the victim, while a musical genius, had a very dark history.

I was quickly caught up in the plot, and was kept guessing to the end. I also enjoyed the depth of character, and especially the relationship between Brunetti and his lovely wife Paola. This has been on show more my TBR for a long time and I don’t know what I was waiting for. So glad I finally got to it; I’ll definitely keep reading this series. show less

Commissario Brunetti, a chief detective in Venice, is a splendid character. He feels so very human working through each day trying to solve who murdered a world-famous conductor in the middle of the opera. I suspect I relate to him as we work through work problems in similar ways. I appreciated how the author described his interactions at home, his boss, the witnesses all in relation to his workaday issues. Excellent descriptions of Venice as well. I felt like I knew it so well and it helped that I’d spent three days there so I could easily imagine some of the descriptions. But also regretted not seeing some of Venice the author described: on a clear day, you can make out the Dolomites? Wow! To me the mystery was the least interesting show more part of the book—I really loved Guido! So I hope this is the beginning of a lovely relationship with this series! show less

In the best tradition of murder mysteries, the first Brunetti novel opens with the sudden death of the maestro between the second and third acts of La Traviata. And of course it turns out that just about everyone in his immediate surroundings could have had a personal reason to detest the conductor - an authoritarian German with touches of Karajan, Furtwängler and Richard Strauss in his back-story - even though most of them say a love of his music would have held them back from actually killing him.

The solution to the mystery turns out to be relatively simple, and mostly involves Brunetti holding back on asking the most obvious questions until we get to page 200; the reason to read this book is not the crime-story itself, but rather show more Leon's affectionate, mildly satirical view of Venice and the people who live there. She seems to be very good at catching what it is about the Italian professional classes that makes them peculiarly Italian, without quite turning her characters into stereotypes. (It's also nice to see how much LGBT interest there is in this book - not something that would be completely obvious for a mainstream crime novel published 25 years ago.)

By the sound of it, the mood gets a little blacker and more political in the later books, which is probably a good thing - you would fairly soon get fed up with the light, frivolous atmosphere of this one if it carried on without discovering any further depths in the characters. I don't know if the plots get any more complex, though. show less

When a renowned conductor dies of cyanide poisoning during the second intermission of La Traviata, the case falls to Commissario Guido Brunetti. In order to find out who killed the conductor and why, Brunetti must dig into his past. Could the motive have something to do with his rumored Nazi party membership during the war? Or maybe his known antipathy to homosexuals? Or something else altogether? In Venice, sometimes who you know is as important as what you know. Brunetti uses connections of family and friends to gather the information he needs to solve the case.

This book differs from many police procedurals since Brunetti spends more time interviewing witnesses and suspects than he does looking at forensic evidence and reading lab show more reports. In some ways it reads like an Agatha Christie novel dropped into an Italian setting. I enjoyed the musical angle to the plot, and I love the Venetian setting. I look forward to continuing with this series. show less

between 3 and 3.5 stars. this is really well written, the main character launching the series is enjoyable to spend time with, the location is lovely, and the mystery is good. but somehow i wasn't all that interested in the mystery aspect of it, and i wanted more from the setting (it might not be fair, but i was told that leon's books have venice as a secondary character and that didn't feel as true as i'd been led to believe; at least in this one.) but she did an exemplary job with it. impeccable writing and characters i look forward to spending more time with.

while i wasn't all that into the mystery, i loved that there wasn't actually a murder in the end. it always makes me happy when something like that happens. even though, in this show more case, it seemed a bit far-fetched with the antibiotics causing deafness. still, i liked the way that worked out.

i thought the queer aspect was totally surprising for 1992, but i was glad to see it and thought she handled it well, especially for the time and for a tertiary side story. and of course i loved the character brett, even if i didn't love her lover. i was also surprised by the off-the-page sexual violence that was part of the story, and i wish that elizabeth wellauer had behaved differently for her daughter, but then maybe what she did was enough, even if it might not have seemed so in the moment to the girl. along those lines, i really liked that she seemed to have a point here, that she was making this book about something bigger, and of course i'm partial to it being about trauma and sexual violence. she did it well. especially that scene where the old woman tells of the rape of her young sister.

i'm not sure why i didn't like this more because i really can't think of anything to genuinely complain about, and i did like it, but i didn't love it for some reason. that said, i would definitely read on in this series as i really liked the main character and his wife, and the setting and writing. show less

This, the first book in the Commissario Brunetti series, is the first book I've read by the author. It was a decent enough mystery, ie the clues and round-up made good sense, but it didn't feel as if the crime and its solving was the main focus of the book. Rather, it felt more like a slice-of-life tale that happens to be based around a mystery. We follow Brunetti around a comprehensively described Venice (I can't speak for accuracy) while he interviews various witnesses and gathers evidence. The pace was so leisurely that I didn't feel he was particularly concerned about solving it, and the tension level remained low throughout. As in a lot of police procedurals, Brunetti had a superior pressuring him and wanting to take the credit, show more but that didn't seem to bother him much either.

At times, the prose felt clunky and repetitive. The author frequently pops into other character's heads to to let the reader know what they're thinking, which felt unnecessary. Of course, we never get told that a potential suspect is lying, other than Brunetti sometimes thinking they are. He always turns out to be correct in his suppositions. When combined with the head-hopping, that gives me the impression of considerable overlap between omniscient author and the actual character. We don't get the pleasure of seeing Brunetti figuring things out.

For my tastes, there was too much belabouring of "Of course xx acted this way because they were/were not Italian," as if nationality handwaved away any kind of behaviour. I didn't notice Brunetti being worried or frustrated or taken aback, which made him feel very distant as a character. I quite enjoyed his domestic scenes, though I wondered why eg he was surprised at his maths prodigy daughter saying something maths-related and then having to remind himself she was good at maths, as if he'd forgotten. It didn't feel consistent.

I'd say this book's worth trying if you like your mysteries with a gentle pace and with an almost domestic feel. show less