2023-05-24 13:20:19
Donna Leon invites you back to Commissario Brunetti’s home. You know him, but the author weaves new family and colleague relationships into every Venice thriller. Of course there is also murder.
Commissario Guido Brunetti clears his bookshelves at the start of Donna Leon’s new Venice thriller. That’s just how he is, the lovable literature lover who has grown fond of fans in 31 cases. The 32nd case “Like the sowing, so the harvest” is like visiting an old friend.
You think the investigation is about to start when suddenly the call comes: “Guido, come quickly”. But first it’s about a dear colleague who Brunetti gets to know from a completely new perspective. As always, Leon spreads a carpet of networks of relationships, facets of Venice and sensitivities that make the killing almost forgotten. Until a Sri Lankan man is found dead in the water. A completely blank slate.
Rummaging through his bookshelf, Brunetti unexpectedly ends up in the 1980s, when Italy was being hit by a wave of violence from left-wing terrorists. Brunetti thinks bashfully of how he let himself be impressed by revolutionaries as a young student. It’s not a typical Venetian crime this time.
Brunetti’s moral compass fails
“I immersed myself in the larger, Italian world,” says Leon of the German Press Agency. But of course, as always, typical Venice is within reach. After all, Leon has lived in Venice for decades and knows the city like the back of her hand. Even if years ago she fled from the hordes of tourists to a tiny village behind the Swiss border. “The protagonists have kept their typical Venetian way,” she says. “And the real Venetians cannot run away from it: everyone knows everyone.” Brunetti went to school with the suspect’s wife.
Another typical Venice facet: the importance of social status. The suspect feels misjudged as a noble. “As an American and a Democrat, I find this whole idea of nobility kind of strange,” says Leon. “Nevertheless, I understand that someone whose family has lived there for 1,000 years wants to uphold the honor that belongs to the family.”
Brunetti, who came across as almost melancholic in the most recent cases, is enriched by a facet: “His moral compass is becoming quite clear,” says Donna Leon. “He doesn’t like the suspect. So he doesn’t approach the investigation with an open mind.”
Strong women are simply part of Donna Leon
As is so often the case, the clever police assistant Signorina Elettra brings the decisive tool into play. With their new software, a network of relationships that existed decades ago between people who surfaced during the investigation comes to light. In the middle of the braid: a kidnapping in the 80s. The victim never showed up again. How the man from Sri Lanka fits into this situation is unraveled by Brunetti in his usual elegant manner.
Elettra’s strengths are legendary. The tip about the software also came from a strong woman, and Paola belongs in this category anyway when she keeps bringing Brunetti back on track with her razor-sharp observations. “I really enjoy having strong women around me,” says Leon. When such women populate their crime novels, it is an unconscious process. “I never start with a plan along the lines of: Now I want to tackle social injustice against xy,” she says. “It just happens.”
And yet, when asked which of the power couple Guido and Paola she likes more, she doesn’t hesitate for a second: “Guido, definitely,” says Leon. “Paola sometimes puts it on a bit thick, she’s not as obviously sympathetic as Guido. I like his human warmth.”
Like the seed, so the harvest, 320 pages, Diogenes, 26 euros, ISBN 978-3-257-07227-3 (dpa)
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