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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: High class writer Summary: 4 Stars
This is the 18th novel by Donna Leon in 18 years, each featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti and all based in Venice (I think). But in my case it was my first experience with this respected author, and I have closed the last page with a slight grimace tempered by the considerable pleasures of a lot of highly intelligent writing that had gone before.
Evidently, Donna Leon's strengths include excellent characterisation and in the often lengthy dialogues between the key characters. Brunetti isn't one of those burnt-out, maverick cops we are growing rather tired of; instead he's a surprisingly learned individual in literary terms (probably a reflection of the author) and has a settled, happy marriage. This story mainly concerns the illegal transport of toxic waste with touches of happening-right-now-environmental issues in other parts of Italy - Naples in particular - that revolve around the problems of waste disposal and how the Mafia are involved in its exportation to lawless African states such as Somalia. All very topical, but not terribly interesting if truth be told. Amid this there's a murder to be investigated, of someone who was getting a little too close to the toxic trail.
But late on in the novel, things take a surprising and welcome turn in a different direction. Most of what had gone before seems to be put to one side while the focus of attention is on a suspect in the murder investigation, and at this late stage the title of the book makes great sense. It is a murder that occupies Brunetti's thinking for the middle and latter parts of the tale and the final chapters have almost no reference to organised crime and toxic waste disposal at all. It's welcome, as I mentioned, but slightly at odds with the original direction.
What most will remember, I suspect, is the highly debatable 'moral' of the story which has absolutely nothing to do with environmental problems and only to do with retribution in the face of sexual abuse and a victim's right to retaliate. On the one hand, in an ideal world such abusers might well meet their fate at the hands of their victims, but in the real world - and it should be noted that three-quarters of this novel seems to be firmly grounded in reality - abusers tend to get away with it or mete punishment in a court of law.
That's why I grimaced at the turn of the final page. Had the flavour of the story been one that had had all the makings of a mission of personal retribution, a vendetta perhaps - which it wasn't, to be fair - then the same conclusion would have been less surprising. But because the reader's emotions are not pulled in that direction until quite late on, when it does happen we are slightly unprepared for it. Well, I was anyway.
Having said that, Donna Leon is a very talented writer. It's the conversations that stand out. Each one is meticulously choreographed for the page, with all manner of subtle body or facial movements mentioned to support the dialogue, and in particular the words that Brunetti is thinking before saying something different, if not nothing at all. This is surely one of the areas in which Donna Leon stands out, and although some might accuse her of overkill I personally liked it and it gave her writing a certain identity, so that you would recognise it as her own particular style.
To nit-pick, I found the occasional but regular use of Italian words to subsidise the English equivalent a slight nuisance, just one example of which is the 'telefonino', or mobile phone. It is mentioned countless times in the narrative but always in Italian.
Would I try Donna Leon again? I'm tempted. I haven't decided yet, I doubt that I would dive in and buy her entire back-catalogue but ABOUT FACE is good enough to get me to take a closer look at some of her best past novels.
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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