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237 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
This volume disappoints. It neither deepens nor develops new contours for our friend Brunetti. Even meals seem to have been given short shrift in this mystery. And Leon pens the story in a 237 pages which do not feel like a complete mystery, but do feel truncated because of the close which felt abrupt to this reader. The result is that this book feels more like an amuse bouche than a complete meal, a sort of Brunetti-lite offering.
Even more damaging is the clunkiness of this story. If a reader does not hear the breadcrumbs falling as soon as Leon proffers them, the reader may well be wearing earplugs. So, for Leon and her readers, I wish better and more intriguing chapters in the Commissario Brunetti series. This book is lackluster at best and read to this reader as a tale rushed out in a hurry without much thought. Leon is better than this and her readers deserve the best, not this mush.
Brunetti knew, but could not prove, what had happened: the porter had waved to a passing taxi so that he, instead of the concierge, would get a percentage of the fare. The consequences were evident: no one would tell the truth, and the Americans would not understand what had happened.But this is a story about books, collectors, libraries—and looting. The theft of books and pages of books from the (fictional) “Biblioteca Merula” in Venice that Brunetti is called to investigate was perhaps inspired by the looting of the Biblioteca Girolamini in Naples: Brunetti and his colleague Claudia Griffoni discuss this real crime (“it would make a stone weep”) as they head to suspect Franchini’s house in the Castello sestiere of Venice.
As he entertained that thought, Brunetti was momentarily deflected from his desire for a coffee and paused to consider whether he had perhaps stumbled upon some cosmic explanation of current world history. (p. 2)