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Summary
Summary
Donna Leon's Death at La Fenice, the first novel in her beloved Commissario Guido Brunetti series, introduced readers to the glamorous and cutthroat world of opera and one of Italy's finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli-then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to Venice and La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca. Brunetti and his wife, Paola, attend an early performance, and Flavia receives a standing ovation. Back in her dressing room, she finds bouquets of yellow roses-too many roses. Every surface of the room is covered with them. An anonymous fan has been showering Flavia with these beautiful gifts in London, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, and now, Venice, but she no longer feels flattered. A few nights later, invited by Brunetti to dine at his in-laws' palazzo, Flavia confesses her alarm at these excessive displays of adoration. And when a talented young Venetian singer who has caught Flavia's attention is savagely attacked, Brunetti begins to think that Flavia's fears are justified in ways neither of them imagined. He must enter in the psyche of an obsessive fan before Flavia, or anyone else, comes to harm.
Author Notes
Donna Leon was born on September 29, 1942 in Montclair, New Jersey. She taught English literature in England, Switzerland, Iran, China, Italy and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of a Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series. Friends in High Places, a novel from the series, won the Crime Writers Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction in 2000. German Television has produced 16 Commissario Brunetti mysteries for broadcast. She was a crime reviewer for the Sunday Times. She has written the libretto for a comic opera and has set up her own opera company, Il Complesso Barocco. Her titles Jewels of Pardise, The Golden Egg, By Its Cover, Falling in Love and The Waters of Eternal Youth made The New York Times Bestseller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In bestseller Leon's pleasurable 24th mystery to feature Commissario Guido Brunetti (after 2014's By Its Cover), Brunetti reunites with opera diva Flavia Petrelli, whom he exonerated of murder in his first outing, Death at La Fenice. Flavia, performing in a production of Tosca, confides that an unknown admirer has followed her from London to St. Petersburg to Venice, showering her with increasingly extravagant displays of yellow roses. As the fan intrudes into her personal space-placing flowers in her apartment building, leaving a priceless necklace in her dressing room, and writing possessive notes-Brunetti educates himself about stalking. When two people connected to Flavia are seriously injured, he realizes the singer herself is in danger. Leon's Venice is peopled with urbane, sophisticated characters, and she flavors the novel with insights into stagecraft, Tosca, and the storied La Fenice opera house. Series aficionados as well as those who appreciate elegant settings and cultured conversation should find this a deeply satisfying escape. Agent: Susanna Bauknecht, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland). (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Commissario Guido Brunetti returns to La Fenice for another dramatic encounter with the diva Flavia Petrelli. In his first appearance (Death at La Fenice, 1992), Brunetti looked into the murder of an eminent conductor, proving that Flavia wasn't the killer. A few years later, in Aqua Alta (1996), he saved her female lover's life. Now Flavia's back in Venice, and trouble follows as surely as the pigeons flock to Piazza San Marco. Someone has been showering her with too many yellow roses at performances around Europe, and things get creepier when she finds flowers by the door of the apartment she's borrowing in her friendand former loverFreddy's palazzo, especially when Freddy tells her he hasn't let anyone into the building. Then a voice student Flavia had complimented at La Fenice is pushed down the steps of a bridge, and Freddy is attacked. Brunetti needs to find Flavia's stalker (a strange word the computer-phobic detective finds mostly on English-language websites when he deigns to give Google a whirl) before someone gets killed. There isn't much of a mystery here, but there are the usual pleasures of following Brunetti as he walks around the city he knows like the back of his hand; goes home for lunch with his bookish wife, Paola, and their two teenagers; has dinner with his wealthy and surprisingly sensible in-laws; outmaneuvers his dim boss, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta; and looks the other way while Patta's supercompetent secretary, Signorina Elettra, finds the information he needs in a possibly extra-legal manner. Leon begins each of her mysteries with an epigraph from an opera, and she obviously loves placing Brunetti backstage at La Fenice during a performance. Come for the Venetian atmosphere and backstage tour of the opera house, and don't worry too much about the crime. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* For many fans, the high points in Leon's beloved Guido Brunetti series have been the two novels featuring opera diva Flavia Perelli: Death at La Fenice (1992), the series opener, and Aqua Alta (1996). In both tales, Venetian police commissario Brunetti solves crimes that at first appear to implicate the diva. Now, finally, Flavia returns to Venice to star in Tosca at La Fenice, the city's historic opera house. This time, though, she is not a suspect in a crime but a potential victim. An obsessive fan is showering Flavia with inappropriate gifts gifts that carry with them the suggestion of menace. When a male singer whom Flavia supported is assaulted, it appears that the threat has become tangible. Brunetti is asked by Flavia for help, and he responds as he always does, by attempting to discern not only the facts but also the psychology behind them in this case, the process through which an obsessive fan becomes a potentially lethal stalker. As always, there is rich interplay between the characters Brunetti and his wife, Paola, of course, but also Flavia, now a close friend as well as a woman in need of protection. And, best of all, the reappearance of Flavia gives Leon the opportunity to display her deep love of music and to construct a marvelous climactic scene between Flavia and her fan that parallels the finale of Tosca. Brava! HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Guido Brunetti novels have sold more than two million copies in North America, and the previous entry, By Its Cover, reached number seven on the New York Times best-seller list.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
JOE COUGHLIN WAS just a wideeyed boy in "The Given Day," Dennis Lehane's epic novel about a family of Boston cops who prospered in the early 20th century, surviving poverty, prejudice, the Spanish flu pandemic and a crippling police strike. In "Live by Night," Joe returned as an alienated young hoodlum who rejected his father's harsh code of ethics, finding a surrogate in the mob boss who protected him in prison and groomed him to take over the family rackets in Florida, WORLD GONE BY (Morrow/HarperCollins, $27.99) continues this sweeping fathers-and-sons tale by holding out the promise of redemption to Joe, while giving him a son of his own to love and betray. Lehane is such a master plotter, you needn't have read the previous novels to know exactly who Joe is and where he came from. It's a year after Pearl Harbor, and the crime bosses in Tampa have adapted to the war with the same skill and cunning they showed following the repeal of Prohibition. But after losing his wife and his empire in gang wars, Joe retired to serve as consigliere for his old friends in the Bartolo crime family, playing the diplomat with dictators like Fulgencio Batista of Cuba; more civilized businessmen like Montooth Dix, who runs the "Negro" rackets in Brown Town; and certifiable maniacs like King Lucius, who keeps a palace guard named the Androphagi, after a tribe of cannibals. Lucky Luciano calls King Lucius the Devil's "gatekeeper." Other mobsters think he's the Devil himself, although as Joe reasonably observes: "He's not the Devil. The Devil's charming." That kind of mordant wit entrances readers who want more from a crime novel than endless scenes of stomach-turning violence. Which, by the way, Lehane also delivers, in a tightly coiled narrative that pulls Joe back into the game when Theresa Del Frisco, a contract killer currently doing hard time, informs him that some unknown enemy has put out a hit on him. Plot, wit, violence, colorful characters - what more do you want from a genre novel? In Lehane's case, you also expect sympathetic insights into the existential agonies of a moral man working at an immoral profession in a corrupt world. Like his father before him, Joe tries to make restitution for his crimes. But as King Lucius (who's crazy, but not stupid) points out: "You think feeling bad about your sins makes you good. Some might find that kind of delusion contemptible." DONNA LEON'S FIRST love is opera. This American author not only does volunteer work for opera companies, she also set her debut novel, "Death at La Fenice," at that famed opera house in Venice, where she has lived for decades. So choosing Teatro La Fenice for the setting of FALLING IN LOVE (Atlantic Monthly, $26), her latest mystery featuring the erudite and oh-so-sympathetic Commissario Guido Brunetti, makes this elegant novel something of a mash note to a longtime lover. Italy's most celebrated soprano, Flavia Petrelli, a murder suspect in "Death at La Fenice," has returned to the opera house in "Tosca." The performance attended by the detective and his wife is a triumph, but the prima donna is unnerved by the cascade of yellow roses tossed onto the stage, another display of obsessive devotion from the anonymous fan who is showering her with gifts and soon begins attacking people close to her. The audacious investigation, conducted by Brunetti's confederate Signorina Elettra, into the psychology of stalkers is thorough and illuminating. But for opera buffs, going backstage at Teatro La Fenice is the real treat. WHAT A SAD tale Jeannette de Beauvoir tells in ASYLUM (Minotaur, $25.99), which opens in the 1950s with a scene of an unwed Canadian mother delivering her little girl to an orphanage run by tight-lipped nuns. "She's safe now," a kindly priest promises the woman. Readers' eyebrows shoot up when they come across such hollow assurances; as well they should, since the conditions of institutional life prove to be extremely harsh and very cruel. But the extent of that cruelty is not revealed until years later, when the luridly posed bodies of murdered women begin turning up all over Montreal. The panicked mayor delegates Martine LeDuc, his public relations director, to work with a young police detective on containing the damage before the tourist industry implodes, and they trace the current atrocities back to a time when medical experiments were performed on unwanted children warehoused in mental asylums. The author does a professional job of delivering the avenging angel, but the historical authenticity of the case makes it tough to take as fiction.
Library Journal Review
In his latest outing, Commissario Brunetti (after By Its Cover) investigates a stalking centered on the production of the well-known Puccini opera Tosca. Flavia Petrelli, the fabulous Italian soprano and murder suspect from Leon's first novel, Death at La Fenice, returns to the famed opera house. This time, Flavia is the victim of a stalker who showers her with abundant yellow roses and priceless jewels. Anyone who appears to befriend or protect Flavia becomes as well, with the soprano herself the intended final act. As in previous entries, Brunetti and company highlight excellent detective work in addition to providing clever but perceptive commentary on critical social issues, this time unionization and strikes. Brunetti devotees and avid readers will also savor the passages focusing on Brunetti's spouse, Paola, and her love of reading. Listen should be forewarned that this entry, which is narrated by the gifted David Colacci, ends somewhat abruptly. Verdict Recommend to Leon's fans as well as those who enjoy Louise Penny's Armand Gamache and the long-running Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes-different locales with great detectives. ["Another provocative addition to a fine series, certain to appeal to aficionados of profound literary mysteries": LJ 2/1/15 starred review of the Atlantic Monthly hc.]-Sandra C. Clariday, Tennessee Wesleyan Coll. Lib., Athens © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.