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Executive
Times |
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2008
Book Reviews |
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The Girl
of His Dreams by Donna Leon |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on title or
picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Resolute Donna
Leon reprises Commissario Guido Brunetti for The Girl
of His Dreams, another mystery set in Venice. The resolute commissario
doggedly investigates the murder of a gypsy girl found in one of the canals.
Along the way, he eats, meanders, drinks, thinks, and solves the murder. He
also remains practical and pragmatic about what is to be done in every
situation. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 2, pp. 8-9: Friends and relatives stood around
them as the boat pulled up to the imbarcadero,
but Brunetti kept his attention on the approaching dock
and distracted himself with the thought of the restoration of Sergio's house,
completed only six months before. If talk of their health was the chief
diversion of the elderly and talking of sports that of men, then talk of property
was the social glue that held all classes of Venetians together. Few can
resist the lure of the sound of prices asked and paid, great deals made or
lost, or the recitation of square metres, previous owners, and the
incompetence of the bureaucrats whose task it is to authorize restorations
or modernizations. Brunetti believed that only food was more often a topic
of conversation at Venetian dinner tables. Was this the substitute for
stories of what one did in the war: had acumen in the buying and selling of
houses and apartments been substituted for physical bravery, valour, and
patriotism? Given that the only war the country had been involved in for
decades was both a disgrace and a failure, perhaps it was better that people
talk about houses. The
clock on the wall at Fondamenta Nuove told him that it was only a bit past eleven.
His mother had always loved the mornings best: it was probably from her that
Brunetti had got his early-morning cheerfulness, the quality of his which
drove Paola closest to desperation. People filed off the boat, others filed
on, then it took them quickly to the Madonna dell'Orto, where the Brunetti
family and their friends got off the vaporetto and started back into the
city, the church on their left. They
turned left at the canal, right over the bridge, and then they were at the
door. Sergio opened it, and they filed quietly up the stairs and then into
the apartment. Paola went towards the kitchen to see if Gloria needed help,
and Brunetti walked over to the windows and looked out towards the facade of the church. The
corner of
a wall allowed him to see only the left hand side and just
six of the apostles. The brick dome of the bell tower had always looked like
a panettone to him, and so it did now He
sensed the motion of people behind him, heard voices talking, and was glad
that they were not lowered in one of those false genuflections to grief. He
kept his back to them and to the talk and looked across at the facade. He had
been out of the city that day more than a decade ago when someone had walked
into the church and quietly removed the Bellini Madonna from the altar at the left and
walked out of the church with it. The art theft people had come up from Rome,
but Brunetti and his family had remained on holiday in Sicily, and by the
time he got home, the art police had gone south again and the newspapers had
tired of the case. And that was the end of that. And then nothing: the
painting might as well have evaporated. If you’ve never read one of the Brunetti
mysteries, feel free to start with The Girl
of His Dreams. You’re likely to want to explore others and savor each. Steve Hopkins, August 15, 2008 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the Seeptember 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Girl of His Dreams.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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