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About Face (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Donna Leon
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Donna Leon Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Format: Deckle Edge Published: 2009-04 ISBN: 0802118968 Number of pages: 272 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Book Reviews of About Face (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery)Book Review: An Intellectual Work with an Explosive Climax Summary: 5 Stars
Donna Leon, an American who is a resident of Venice, Italy, is the author of a critically acclaimed mystery series with Guido Brunetti, a Venetian police commissioner who is still principled enough to bemoan the fact that those who commit crimes are seldom, if ever, punished, at least by the institutions set up for the purpose of doing so. This particular musing on Brunetti's part sets up an ultimately ironic scenario in ABOUT FACE, Leon's latest work.
A principled man, Brunetti struggles to work within a system that is corrupt in subtle manners and otherwise, in the same way that one might seek to pass through a curbside puddle, minimizing the damage to shoes and clothes. Brunetti's wife, Paola, is a hereditary contessa who nonetheless teaches school. Their relationship --- as with most marriages that weather the test of time --- is, if not passionate, comfortable, but believably so. As Brunetti notes during ABOUT FACE, they don't hold grudges.
Brunetti is not entirely comfortable with the wealth that his wife's family holds, so we find him somewhat ill at ease at the beginning of the book as he dutifully attends with his wife a dinner party at the home of his in-laws. He is seated at dinner across from Franca Marinello, a woman who is striking for both good and unfortunate reasons. Married to a fabulously successful businessman some three decades older than her, Franca wears the facial disfigurations of excessive plastic surgery gone awry. Nonetheless, he is quietly though obviously quite taken with her, due in no small part to her intimate familiarity with classical literature.
Maurizio Cataldo, Franca's husband, is seeking to do business with Conte Falier, Brunetti's father-in-law. Cataldo has a whispered reputation for being perhaps somewhat untrustworthy --- how could he be successful otherwise? And Falier, being a careful man, subsequently asks Brunetti to use the formal and informal channels that the police possess to check out his dealings.
Meanwhile, Guarino, an enigmatic Carabiniere (military policeman) from outside of Venice, is seeking the assistance of Brunetti's station in the investigation into the murder of one of Guarino's informants. The matter is tenuously tied to Venice since one of the informant's criminal contacts --- a man who may have been responsible for the murder --- was known to schedule clandestine meetings in the city. The matter is dumped into Brunetti's lap; notwithstanding the fact that there is little to go on other than a picture of the person of interest, Brunetti uses a combination of dogged police work, guesswork, instinct and logic to identify the unknown man. When his first steps toward tentative success lead to tragic results, he becomes more determined to succeed, even as he comes to learn that there may be a connection between the man and Franca, with whom he remains platonically, if not secretly, enchanted.
ABOUT FACE is primarily an intellectual work; as with the best music, sometimes what is not obvious is often as important as what is obvious. Such a state of affairs is why the explosive climax is so startling, even when one comes to expect it. Leon makes much of otherwise harmless occurrences, and the denouement, where all is made clear, is quite credible. Although the villain of the piece is a brooding, off-page presence until well into the final third of the book, the results of the unfortunate aspects of his personality resonate throughout. While ABOUT FACE is the 18th of Leon's Brunetti novels, it can be read without reference to what has gone before. Jump on here, by all means, but leave time to catch up. You will want to read every word of every Brunetti book.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Summary of About Face (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery)Donna Leon?s eighteen novels have won her countless fans, heaps of critical acclaim, and a place among the top ranks of international crime writers. Through the warm-hearted, perceptive, and principled Commissario Guido Brunetti, Leon?s best-selling books have explored Venice in all its aspects: history, tourism, high culture, food, family, but also violent crime and political corruption. In About Face, Leon returns to one of her signature subjects: the environment, which has reached a crisis in Italy. Incinerators across the south of Italy are at full capacity, burning who-knows-what and releasing unacceptable levels of dangerous air pollutants, while in Naples, enormous garbage piles grow in the streets. In Venice, with the polluted waters of the canals and a major chemical complex across the lagoon, the issue is never far from the fore. Environmental concerns become significant in Brunetti?s work when an investigator from the Carabiniere, looking into the illegal hauling of garbage, asks for a favor. But the investigator is not the only one with a special request. His father-in-law needs help and a mysterious woman comes into the picture. Brunetti soon finds himself in the middle of an investigation into murder and corruption more dangerous than anything he?s seen before.
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