Friends in High Places
by Donna Leon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Donna LeonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-08-26
ISBN: 014311414X
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Friends in High Places
Book Review: Readable police procedural (with cozy-mystery elements) set in Venice
Summary: 4 Stars
I came across this volume, "Friends in High Places," quite by accident at my local branch library, to which it had just been transferred in conformity with a policy of shifting the paperback stocks from branch to branch every few months. It appears to be well along in a lengthy series featuring Guido Brunetti, who holds the rank of Commissario in one of Venice's many police forces. Despite entering in medias res as it were, I found Brunetti, his family and his genially corrupt environment to be perfectly accessible.
This is, I suppose, primarily a police procedural, but not even that venerable form has been untouched by the taint of the cozy mystery. It seems almost inevitable that the book should contain asides dealing with the architecture of the Commissario's home, his understated but obviously powerful problems with his rich father-in-law, his immediate superior's family problems and other such diversions from the main line of the book. Hammett, I recall, never felt the need to provide such marginally relevant stuff for his Nameless Detective, nor Chandler for his Marlowe, but I assume that the contemporary reading public--or if not them, then the author's editors must demand it.
From the information within this book--and no more than that--I conclude that the author, Donna Leon seems to know Venice fairly well--certainly better than many writers who set their tales in my own home town of San Francisco, making an unholy hash of its geography, sociology and history.
I also conclude that Ms. Leon, in common with many writers, particularly those of British extraction, neither knows nor cares much about the nuts-and-bolts operations of any real police force, and particularly of Brunetti's. Her Commissario comes to his office and then leaves it virtually at random. He has no discernible case load. He is without any visible administrative responsibilities, although he seems to hold the number three position in his force. He has no court appearances, either scheduled or potential. He takes up cases at apparent personal whim. He has no organizational colleagues or rivals. He issues no commands to subordinates, except to a civilian secretary whom he shares with his boss. All these unlikely things are, in fact, characteristic of most police procedurals these days, so they cannot be regarded as a black marks against this one.
Of more significance, though, is a bit of laziness on the part of the author. That secretary I mentioned a moment ago plays an important role in this novel. She uses her computer skills to provide Brunetti with information whenever the author finds it convenient for her to do so. Since the author has made Brunetti effectively both computer illiterate and indifferent, she never has to bother with explaining just how that secretary manages to dredge up the supposedly guarded data and, perhaps more significantly, how she avoids discovery and penalties for her hacking. The secretary is, in short, just a useful device rather than a true character in the novel. Even Agatha Christie's Miss Lemon had more substance to her.
In the same category is an authorial shortcut in the structuring Ms. Leon's tale. We non-Venetian readers have to be fed a considerable amount of raw information on Venetian banking, alternative money-lending and the consequences arising from both. She accomplishes the task in this book by making Brunetti an entirely blank slate, forcing him to ask questions about things that should be common knowledge to any Venetian, and d----d well ought to be known by any high-ranking cop.
Finally, there is the conclusion of the book. It's not bad. It actually makes sense--enough sense for a mystery novel, anyway. It might even be (sort of) realistic. Nevertheless, it is noticeably underpowered. My reaction at the end of the book was, "Is that all?" While admittedly the real world does not often act that way, within a novel I expect the pay-off to be commensurate with the build-up. Sadly, it is not in this book.
Despite all this nit-picking, I rather enjoyed "Friends in High Places." Donna Leon is a competent wordsmith. Brunetti is an appealing character with a charming habit of confusing Charley Chan-like observations with actual wisdom. Venice is an attractive location. And, as I said, the ending actually made a bit of sense--a rare enough accomplishment these days.
These positive aspects are just enough to lift the book from the mediocrity of three stars to a very ... very weak four stars.
If I encounter Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti on a bookshelf at some time in the future, I have every intention of following his new adventures.
LEC/Am/2-09
Summary of Friends in High Places
The winner of the Crime Writers Association Macallan Silver Dagger?available for the first time in the United StatesDonna Leon?s sophisticated Commissario Brunetti series has won her legions of fans over the years. In Friends in High Places, Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the building of Brunetti?s apartment years before. What began as a red tape headache ends in murder when the bureaucrat is found dead after a mysterious fall from a scaffold. Brunetti starts an investigation that will take him into unfamiliar and dangerous areas of Venetian life, and will reveal, once again, what a difference it makes to have friends in high places.
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