Bøger af Donna Leon

In his many years as a Commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native Venice to discover the person responsible.

When several valuable antiquarian books go missing from a prestigious library in the heart of Venice, Commissario Brunetti is immediately called to the scene. The staff suspect an American researcher has stolen them, but for Brunetti something doesn't quite add up.

A suspicious accident draws Brunetti into Venice's underworld - with unintended, disturbing consequences... A few weeks later, Tullio Gasparini, the woman's husband, is found unconscious with a serious head injury at the foot of a bridge, and Brunetti is drawn to pursue a possible connection to the boy's behaviour.

The third novel in the highly popular Commissario Brunetti series

'The climax is nothing less than a trip - across the laguna - into the heart of darkness ... Leon's special skill is to splice glimpses of la dolce vita with acute analysis of moral and ethical dilemmas ... The series that has shadowed Brunetti for three decades is an epic achievement.' The TimesChosen as Star Pick in the Sunday Times Crime Club__________________________________In his many years as a Commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native Venice to discover the person responsible. Now, in the thirtieth novel in Donna Leon's masterful series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joy riding in the Laguna with two young Italians. However, Brunetti's curiosity is aroused by the behaviour of the young men, who abandoned the victims after taking them to the hospital. If the injuries were the result of an accident, why did they want to avoid association with it?As Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, investigate the incident, they discover that one of the young men works for a man rumoured to be involved in more sinister night-time activities in the Laguna. To get to the bottom of what proves to be a gut-wrenching case, Brunetti needs to enlist the help of both the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Costiera. Determining how much trust he and Griffoni can put in these unfamiliar colleagues adds to the difficulty of solving a peculiarly horrible crime whose perpetrators are technologically brilliant and ruthlessly organised.Donna Leon's thirtieth Brunetti novel is as powerful as any she has written, testing Brunetti to his limits, forcing him to listen very carefully for the truth.

In Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon s first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to the glamorous and cut-throat world of opera and to one of Italy s finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to the illustrious La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca.As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans and aspiring singers. But when one anonymous admirer inundates her with bouquets of yellow roses on stage, in her dressing room and even inside her locked apartment it becomes clear that this fan has become a potentially dangerous stalker. Distraught, Flavia turns to an old friend for help. Familiar with Flavia s melodramatic temperament, Commissario Brunetti is at first unperturbed by her story, but when another young opera singer is attacked he begins to think Flavia s fears may be justified. In order to keep his friend out of danger, Brunetti must enter the psyche of an obsessive fan and find the culprit before anyone comes to harm.

Twenty-one years ago, when a conductor was poisoned and the Questura sent a man to investigate, readers first met Commissario Guido Brunetti. Since 1992's Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon and her shrewd, sophisticated, and compassionate investigator have been delighting readers around the world.

Caterina Pellegrini is a young Venetian musicologist hired to find the rightful heir to an alleged treasure concealed by a once-famous, but now almost forgotten, baroque composer. Sworn to secrecy, Caterina can solve the mystery only by searching through the papers contained in two chests that have not been opened for centuries.

When Anna Maria Giusti returns from holiday to find her elderly neighbour Constanza Altavilla dead, with blood on the floor near her head, she immediately alerts the police. Commissario Brunetti is called to the scene and it seems the woman has suffered a fatal heart attack.

The fourth novel in the highly popular Commissario Brunetti series

The fifth novel in the highly popular Commissario Brunetti series

Neither Commissario Brunetti nor his wife Paola have ever had much sympathy for the Italian armed forces, so when a young cadet is found hanged, at Venice's elite military academy, Brunetti's emotions are complex. But as Brunetti - and the indispensable Signorina Elettra - investigate further, no one seems willing to talk.

For Commissario Guido Brunetti it began with an early morning phone call. A sudden act of vandalism has just been committed in the chill Venetian dawn, a rock thrown in anger through the window of a building in the deserted city. But soon Brunetti finds out that the perpetrator is no petty criminal intent on some annoying anonymous act.

Then something very incriminating is discovered in the dead man's flat - something which points to the existence of a high-level cabal - and Brunetti becomes convinced that somebody, somewhere, is taking great pains to provide a ready-made solution to the crime ...

As Venice experiences a debilitating heatwave, Commissario Brunetti escapes the city to spend time with his family. Intrigued, Brunetti asks Signorina Elettra to find out what she can while he's away. When news reaches Brunetti that the usher from the Courthouse has been viciously murdered, he returns to investigate.

An engaging collection of stories and essays by the celebrated author of the internationally bestselling Guido Brunetti series, infused with her ever-present and delightful senses of humor and ironyDonna Leon's memoir, Wandering Through Life, gave her legions of fans a colourful tour through her life, from childhood in New Jersey to adventures in China and Iran, to her love of Venice and opera. Nowhere, however, did she discuss her writing life.In Backstage, Donna reveals her admiration for, and inspiration from, the great crime novelists Ruth Rendell and Ross Macdonald, examining their approach to storytelling as she dissects her favorite books of theirs. She expresses her love for Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and her appreciation of Sir Walter Scott's generosity of spirit. And she chronicles the lengths amount of research she undertakes to be able to present authentically, through Guido Brunetti and his colleagues, places and characters far from her own experience: interviewing a diamond dealer in Venice to open up the world of blood diamonds; meeting, through back channels, a courageous sex worker and women's rights activist to depict accurately the trafficking of women in Italy.Venice is central in her memory, whether recounting the semi-comic irritation of a noisy elderly neighbor or the origins of the city's Carnevale. Her teaching career yields memorable tales: helping a young Black boy in a Newark, New Jersey elementary school; instructing young Iranian pilots in English just before the 1979 Iranian Revolution; taking her students at a Swiss private high school to the famous Frank Zappa concert in Montreux interrupted by fire.Throughout, she is as good a storyteller about herself as she is a chronicler of Guido Brunetti's crime adventures. Readers will be as caught up in her world as she is in his.

"Around one a.m. on an early spring morning, two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of Venice's squares. Commissario Claudia Griffoni, on duty that night, perhaps ill-advisedly walks the last of the boys home because his father, Dario Monforte, failed to pick him up at the Questura. Coincidentally, Guido Brunetti is asked by a wealthy friend of Vice-Questore Patta to vet Monforte for a job, triggering Brunetti's memory that twenty years earlier Monforte had been publicly celebrated as the hero of a devastating bombing of the Italian military compound in Iraq. Yet Monforte had never been awarded a medal either by the Carabinieri, his service branch, or by the Italian government. That seeming contradiction, and the brutal attack on one of concentrate Brunetti's attentions. Surprisingly empowered by Patta, supported by Signorina Elettra's extraordinary research abilities and by his wife, Paola's, empathy, Brunetti, with Griffoni, gradually discovers the sordid hypocrisy surrounding Monforte's past, culminating in a fiery meeting of two gangs and a final opportunity for redemption."--

The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. Following a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon got her first taste of the classical music and opera that would enrich her life. She also developed a yen for adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a chaperone to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market. Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel's vocal music, and her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees--which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery Earthly Remains. Even as mass tourism takes its toll on the patience of residents, Leon's passion for Venice remains unchanged: its outrageous beauty and magic still captivate her.Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon poignantly confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuadingthose hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her sharp sense of humor, Wandering through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

Commissario Guido Brunetti returns with a gripping and powerful case about the murkiness of power and a test of loyaltiesWhen two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of Venice's campi, the son of a local hero is implicated. But when Commissario Guido Brunetti is asked by a wealthy foreigner to vet this man, Monforte, for a job, he discovers that Monforte might not be such a hero after all.This seeming contradiction, and a brutal attack on one of Brunetti's colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate Brunetti's attentions. Soon, he discovers the sordid hypocrisy surrounding Monforte's past, culminating in a fiery meeting of two gangs and a final opportunity for redemption.A Refiner's Fire is Donna Leon at her very best: an elegant, sophisticated storyteller whose indelible characters become richer with each book, and who constantly interrogates the ambiguity between moral and legal justice.

"The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties."--

I miss sweets, cookies, cakes all my favorite desserts, it's not fair! Well you don't have to miss your favorite desserts and treats anymore! In fact I guarantee you, once you try the recipes in this book, you won't feel deprived at all. I will show you how to make Gluten Free Tasty Desserts; showing you how to prepare them in such a way that they are not only delicious, but health. Yes, it will be a change from what you are used to, but a change is good. I am sure you will enjoy the many 'new to you' desserts I have incorporated into this book. I have found creative ways to make crusts and cakes and cookies. You may be surprised how good and easy these great recipes are! Ready? Let's get started, you know you want to! You know you deserve it, enough of depriving yourself! Let's indulge

Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon now confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging, whilst looking back on her adventurous life. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her fierce sense of humour.

In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon's bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti's own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murderOn a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s.As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signora Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle--random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships--that appear to have little in common, until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

'Donna Leon provides another delectable slice of the thoughtful policeman's life at work and at home... So Shall You Reap is as witty and wise as anything Leon has written. To read her is to restore the soul.' The TimesOn a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a garden house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s.As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signorina Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle-random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships-that appear to have little in common. Until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.PRAISE FOR DONNA LEON'A splendid series . . . with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it' Sunday Telegraph'One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever' Washington Post'Rich entertainment' Sunday Times