Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Donna Leon; Jon Ronson; EM Forster

Death at La Fence by Donna Leon

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“The third gong, announcing the opera was about to continue, sounded discreetly through the lobbies and bars of Teatro La Fenice.” This is the first of the Commissario Brunetti mystery novels, which take place in Venice, and follow Commissario Brunetti as he solves various crimes. You know the drill. There are 32! of these novels now since they first started getting published in the early 1990s. I read a middle one of these awhile back and really liked it, and I don’t think I could […]

Vino with Guido

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

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Death at La Fenice is the first of 31 Commissario Brunetti mysteries. If you haven’t heard of this series, which began in 1992, Commissario Brunetti is a middle-aged detective in Venice, Italy. This inaugural mystery begins with a very dead, very famous maestro found on the floor of his dressing room. Tragic? Yes. But also very inconvenient – he died during the intermission of an opera! Word quickly spreads, as do the rumors and innuendo. Did he die of old age? Was he murdered? With […]

In the City of Mirages

The Temptation of Forgiveness (Commissario Brunetti 27) by Donna Leon

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After one of his wife’s colleagues asks Brunetti to investigate her son’s school because she suspects that drugs are sold to the students there, the worried professoressa‘s husband is found severely injured at the foot of a bridge. At the same time, Brunetti is tasked with finding out who is leaking sensitive information from the Questura. I haven’t read a Commissario Brunetti book in a long time, but it is easy to return to the world Donna Leon created because nothing much seems to have […]

Solve your longing for travel and a mystery

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

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I picked this up from my library just before everything shut down. Having read the book, I instantly regretted having gotten just the first in the series.  This book is a little slow to get started, but once you are in it, it is everything you want in a police detective mystery. Bonus that it takes place in Venice, Italy, so while no one can physically visit right now, this book will take you there in your mind. Police Commissario Guido Brunetti finds himself investigating […]



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