The Waters of Eternal Youth

January 25, 2016
Commissario Guido Brunetti looks into a 15-year-old mystery in bestseller Leon’s poignant 25th outing for the Venetian police inspector (after 2015’s Falling in Love). Did Manuela Lando-Continui, who was almost 16, fall into a canal, as the contemporary police investigation concluded, or was she pushed? She sustained permanent brain damage and has no recollection of the incident. The only witness claimed that he saw a man push her, but he was drunk and forgot his testimony the following day. Now Manuela’s elderly contessa grandmother wants to know the truth before she dies. Leon deftly builds her plot against the struggles of contemporary Venetians unable to afford housing in their beloved city and under threat from hostile immigrants. She draws Manuela and the contessa with skill and nuance, and longtime readers will enjoy insights into the past of Commissario Claudia Griffoni, the inspector’s colleague. Fans new and old should appreciate this escape into Brunetti’s elegant, sophisticated, yet troubled Venice. Agent: Susanna Bauknecht, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland).

January 1, 2016
Venice might be sinking into the sea, but as long as Commissario Guido Brunetti is around, there will be someone to make sure the city doesn't become a total swamp of cynicism and corruption. This is Leon's 25th book about Brunetti (Falling in Love, 2015, etc.), and the usual suspects are all here. There's Paola, Brunetti's wife, able to whip up a three-course lunch between teaching English literature and reading Henry James for fun. Their children, Raffi and Chiara, provide mealtime repartee that often leads to philosophical debate: "I wondered if it's against the law to ask people for money on the street," Chiara says one day. Brunetti's boss, the professionally dim Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, is once again manipulated by Brunetti, and Patta's secretary, the supersharp Signorina Elettra, as always plays the Internet like a maestro: at one point, Brunetti finds her "with both hands raised and motionless over the keyboard of her computer, a pianist about to begin the final movement of a sonata." The book begins at another glittering dinner party given by Brunetti's mother-in-law, Contessa Falier, at which he and Paola are representing ordinary Venetians while another countess, Demetriana Lando-Continui, tries to raise money from wealthy foreigners for her preservation group. Contessa Lando-Continui also wants to ask Brunetti a favor: could he please look into something that happened 15 years earlier, when her granddaughter almost drowned in a canal, suffering permanent brain damage? This gives him a chance to walk around the city, wondering how "tourists find things, with only street addresses to guide them? He didn't like this new age, much preferred having someone tell him the address he was looking for was the house with the new shutters to the right of the greengrocer opposite the flower shop that had the cacti in the window. Any Venetian would understand that." The biggest mystery is how the reader can figure out what happened so quickly, yet it takes the commissario di polizia the whole book to catch on. Still, the pleasures of spending time with Brunetti and the gang have never been greater.

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Starred review from February 15, 2016
For Leon's many devoted fans, the appearance of her twenty-fifth Guido Brunetti novel will be cause for celebration, not only because a new Brunetti adventure is always worth celebrating but also because we won't be able to resist looking back over nearly a quarter-century (her first novel was published in 1992) in which we have come to know the Venetian inspector and his family and to appreciate the subtlety and sensitivity with which he approaches his work and his life. Both those traits are on full view here, as Brunetti agrees to investigate a 15-year-old incident in which a teenager seemingly fell into a canal and nearly died before being rescued by a passing drunk. The brain damage the young woman, Manuela, incurred has left her maturity stunted. There is no evidence that she was the victim of a crime, but there is a grieving grandmother and a beautiful young woman denied the richness of life, and that, for Brunetti, is more than enough to justify his careful poking and prodding of the people involved. His efforts lead to a tangible crime, and gradually, subtly as always, he tears away the scar tissue to reveal the human damage within. Justice is always a melancholy thing in Leon's world, never offsetting the pain that surrounds it, but here, in a marvelous and moving last scene, we glimpse a moment of almost transcendent beauty that makes us realize again how important this series is to our reading lives.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Leon is a regular on best-seller lists these days, but her biggest supporters over the years may well have been mystery-loving librarians and their patrons.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

Starred review from February 1, 2016

A new literary mystery by Leon is cause for celebration, and her latest superb novel (after By Its Cover and Falling in Love) takes the series featuring contemplative Venetian Police Commissario Guido Brunetti to a new level. The investigation commences when Brunetti's mother-in-law invites him to dinner, and he meets a wealthy, socially prominent contessa who makes a peculiar request--namely, that Brunetti investigate the near-drowning of her granddaughter 15 years ago. The contessa insists that Manuela was terrified of water and was an intended murder victim. Moreover, the inebriated man who rescued Manuela initially claimed that he had seen another man push her into the water. While Manuela survived her submersion, she incurred severe brain damage that left her dramatically impaired. VERDICT Surprisingly, Leon has crafted a crime novel both more complex and less dark than his usual offerings. In fact, the book ends not only optimistically but affirmatively. Perfect for readers who enjoy Andrea Camilleri's Italian mysteries. [See Prepub Alert, 10/15/15.]--Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015

Late one night, a teenager splashed into the bottle-green waters of a Venice canal, and the stumbling drunk who pulled her out--not before she suffered brain damage that left her permanently childlike--claims that she was thrown in. He can't remember any details, and nothing happens until 15 years later, when the girl's stately grandmother meets Commissario Guido Brunetti at a fundraiser and asks him to investigate. Last year's Falling in Love debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times best sellers list, this series' best launch ever.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2016

A new literary mystery by Leon is cause for celebration, and her latest superb novel (after By Its Cover and Falling in Love) takes the series featuring contemplative Venetian Police Commissario Guido Brunetti to a new level. The investigation commences when Brunetti's mother-in-law invites him to dinner, and he meets a wealthy, socially prominent contessa who makes a peculiar request--namely, that Brunetti investigate the near-drowning of her granddaughter 15 years ago. The contessa insists that Manuela was terrified of water and was an intended murder victim. Moreover, the inebriated man who rescued Manuela initially claimed that he had seen another man push her into the water. While Manuela survived her submersion, she incurred severe brain damage that left her dramatically impaired. VERDICT Surprisingly, Leon has crafted a crime novel both more complex and less dark than his usual offerings. In fact, the book ends not only optimistically but affirmatively. Perfect for readers who enjoy Andrea Camilleri's Italian mysteries. [See Prepub Alert, 10/15/15.]--Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.