- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan; First Edition edition (19 May 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0333616936
- ISBN-13: 978-0333616932
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.4 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,060,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
When a lorry crashes on one of the treacherous hair-pin bends in the Italian Dolomites even Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Questura is appalled when he learns of its terrible cargo. This is Donna Leon's fourth novel to feature Guido Brunetti.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There is nothing wrong with this book, but beware that altough Amazon are showing it as a just published item today, i.e. 5/1/2012, this book was first published by another publisher in 1996. I was tempted to buy it when I saw that it was listed as a new Donna Leon book. I am glad that I have kept her books and I checked them first. So if you like Donna Leon and haven't read it fine, but check you haven't before buying it.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You may have received, as I did, an e-mail from Amazon which could easily be taken to suggest that this is a new novel from Donna Leon. It isn't, it's a reprint.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Without papers, without rights, without hope." These are the women coming to the west from the Third World or from newly-liberated Eastern Europe in the hope of finding a better life, only instead to end up as cheap prostitutes. The result is another murder, another (apparently) grieving widow, another lawyer, and another case for Brunetti to solve.
There is an underlying hopelessness about the human condition in this, the fourth of Donna Leon's Brunetti series. Published in 1995, not long after the Tangentopoli scandals of 1992-93 that saw the Italian political system in meltdown due to the exposure of massive political corruption, the author refers to Lampedusa's great dictum - espoused in his great novel `The Leopard' - that things must change in order for them to stay the same. Brunetti meditates that, "there'd be elections; there'd be new faces and new promises, but all that would happen would be that different trotters would go into the trough ..."
But he himself is part of the system. When his teenage daughter Chiara complained that, " `since I was doing the police's work, they should pay me for my time' ", Brunetti, having acquiesced in using his daughter as a spy, "regretted Venice's thousand-year-old trading heritage." Moreover, we are all human, but it is nevertheless disheartening to see Brunetti relying on some colleague's computer hacking and to see him condone the corrupt amendment of police records, even if justice might be better served by these methods.
As usual, the denouement appears in the penultimate chapter with a twist in the final one. But, somehow this novel failed to live up to the previous three (hence only three stars). It's difficult to put my finger on why this may be so. Certainly, the story relies too much on Brunetti having contacts with various people all over the world, from Brazil to the Philippines. Or maybe it is the squeamish nature of the case that results in Brunetti's wife feeling "as though I'd looked through a window and seen human evil looking back at me."
But I'm well into reading the fifth in the series (`Acqua Alta') and am pleased to report a return to four-star form.
There is an underlying hopelessness about the human condition in this, the fourth of Donna Leon's Brunetti series. Published in 1995, not long after the Tangentopoli scandals of 1992-93 that saw the Italian political system in meltdown due to the exposure of massive political corruption, the author refers to Lampedusa's great dictum - espoused in his great novel `The Leopard' - that things must change in order for them to stay the same. Brunetti meditates that, "there'd be elections; there'd be new faces and new promises, but all that would happen would be that different trotters would go into the trough ..."
But he himself is part of the system. When his teenage daughter Chiara complained that, " `since I was doing the police's work, they should pay me for my time' ", Brunetti, having acquiesced in using his daughter as a spy, "regretted Venice's thousand-year-old trading heritage." Moreover, we are all human, but it is nevertheless disheartening to see Brunetti relying on some colleague's computer hacking and to see him condone the corrupt amendment of police records, even if justice might be better served by these methods.
As usual, the denouement appears in the penultimate chapter with a twist in the final one. But, somehow this novel failed to live up to the previous three (hence only three stars). It's difficult to put my finger on why this may be so. Certainly, the story relies too much on Brunetti having contacts with various people all over the world, from Brazil to the Philippines. Or maybe it is the squeamish nature of the case that results in Brunetti's wife feeling "as though I'd looked through a window and seen human evil looking back at me."
But I'm well into reading the fifth in the series (`Acqua Alta') and am pleased to report a return to four-star form.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brunetti again
Arrived swiftly. A very good story in the Leon tradition. She goes from strength to strength.I would strongly recommend this book.
Published 3 months ago by Jac
Cheated!
Whilst undoubtedly a good read, with Brunetti in top form, this is not a new book, and I feel cheated at having bought a book first published in 1995. Read more
Published 4 months ago by MarieS
'A Venetian Reckoning' by Donna Leon
This book is a treat,as I've found with all of her crime series set in wonderful Venice.I relish how her police inspector,Guido Brunetti,patiently,intuitively builds up a... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Zelda W
A Venetian Reckoning
As promised, arrived in good condition before the due date. Usual Donna Leon, engrossing plot but made more memorable by the attention to character, especially of the characters... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mrs. Anne E. Smith
lucky escape
I have given it 1*not because it was a poor read but because I thought it was a new book. I was glad I had read the reviews before purchasing. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mrs. Eileen L. Cowan
Not for the squeemish!
It's difficult not liking a Commissario Brunetti novel. I have taken a break from them with British country house murders in the 1920s and reading this book was really a shock,... Read more
Published on 1 April 2010 by Luthien Arnatuile
Excellence again
Once again, you can actually see every shade of light, smell every odour around every corner of Venice in Donna Leon's writing. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2009 by Marti Purull Urrea
A Brutal Existential Look at Ethics
Please be aware that this book also appeared under the title of Death and Judgment. If you are trying to read the whole series, read one or the other. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2007 by Donald Mitchell
A Brutal Existential Look at Ethics
Please be aware that this book also appeared under the title of Death and Judgment. If you are trying to read the whole series, read one or the other. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2007 by Donald Mitchell
A Brutal Existential Look at Ethics
Please be aware that this book also appeared under the title of Death and Judgment. If you are trying to read the whole series, read one or the other. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2007 by Donald Mitchell
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