Disappointing and slow
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R Hove's review below sums up exactly my feelings while reading this book. Lengthy scene descriptions which do not serve any particular purpose and make the story a bit tedious to read.
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This detective doesn't do office politics ...
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I always get the feeling that life in Italy's cities is full of bureaucracy and petty battles between all involved in government. You either embrace it or try to ignore it - Leon's detective Inspector Brunetti does the latter and it is his ambivalence and refusal to join in office politics rather than kicking against the system that makes him a more refreshing kind of maverick detective!
Having read this after visiting Venice, I found it more interesting as I could picture the locations, which along with Brunetti added to this better than average but not brilliant novel.
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I enjoyed it so much, I have ordered the second in the series.
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Death at La Fenice, written in 1992, is Donna Leon's first in her series of crime novels set in Venice, featuring Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police. (The American author has lived in Venice for many years and has taught English literature at degree level.)
La Fenice (pronounced La Fen-ee-chay) is the city's opera house, and the death is that of a visiting German conductor. (On her own website, the author relates how the impetus behind the book was her dislike of a certain German conductor with a dubious past, presumably von Karajan.)
Over 25 chapters and 338 pages, my interest was maintained: although not an un-put-down-able book, it is nevertheless a willing pick-me-up-able one. The characterisation is good, the description of Venice is realistic, and the plot believable. I enjoyed it so much, I have ordered the second in the series, Death in a Strange Country.
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A good first draft, but needs tighter editing and more depth!
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Having a recent run on decent crime fiction, I picked up this offering by Donna Leon, expecting, well, a decent crime thriller. After all, this book won a CWA Silver Dagger, what could go wrong?
Firstly, of all the cities in Italy, Venice must surely be one of the most atmospheric. It's damp, crumbling, foggy, narrow, smelly etc etc, and yet there is such a lack of atmosphere in Leon's offering. It almost takes talent NOT to paint Venice with any depth. We get the description of the occasional palazzo, canal, restaurant, etc, but description isn't feeling of place....If I read a book like this, I expect it to motivate me to go and see the city immediately, but there's simply not enough here to express the life of the city properly. No-one interacts with the space and any description just feels like an add-on, like the wooden backdrop at a theatre.
Characterisation is fairly average - I see nothing of any interest in Brunetti, or of anyone else for that matter. Again, no depth to anyone. Even the most famous Verdi soprano in Italy - Flavia Petrelli - should be camped up to give her a bit of life, but no, not a bit of it. Look at Dibdin's Aurelio Zen - an uncomplicated man, but nevertheless imbued with enough conflict in his personal and professional life to make him interesting. Look at Rankin's Rebus - exactly the same. But Brunetti? I can't think of one distinguishing character trait, and this is less than 24 hours after finishing the book! With such a lack of depth in the characters, it's difficult to see how any of them even have enough energy to have a motive for killing the guy! We also have a few policemen that `help' Brunetti out, yet are sent away on errands and we never see them again. A good opportunity for a subplot(s) missed.
Plotwise, the plot is well structured, or structured enough, I suppose - Brunetti never loses sight of his goal; to find the killer of acclaimed conductor Helmut Wallaeur. But that's it. It's a classic blueprint mystery, circa 1930, that Christie could have written (much better I suspect) - a body, a circle of closed suspects, detective asks around, defines (or tries to) means, motives and opportunity, etc etc eventually voila! Supposedly unmasks the killer. Unfortunately there's never any conflict throughout - Brunetti has been told to sort it out quickly by his boss (unfortunately, the stereotypically idiot boss that every detective is required to have these days), but that's it. He suffers no bars to his investigation, no internal conflict of personal involvement, no threats, no high level conspiracies, no political involvement etc etc. It's languid and therefore somewhat boring. Although the last quarter of the book speeds up a bit and the mystery starts to get a bit meaty, the dénouement when it comes is highly unsatisfactory and presents more questions than it answers.....Having said that, the underlying reason for Wallaeur's demise blindsided me somewhat in that it is a shocker and it is cleverly exposed. However, straight after that she snatches defeat from the jaws of victory with what happens next.
This is not a great novel by any means - I can see why Leon has had relatively little success in the US, where crime thrillers are supposed to be pacy, hard edged, thrilling. This offering is diet-crime, its run of the mill, unspectacular, the Ford Escort of crime! No sex, no violence, no cat and mouse standoffs, no nothing really. It's a beach thriller that won't last long in the memory. It could have been a great short story I think, but as a novel, it could benefit from having tighter editorial control. For example, there are scenes in it that could have been lost. Leon has a tendency to give us scenes that mean something different - this scene is a character development scene, this scene is a plot scene, this scene is a descriptive scene etc etc. A more talented writer does all of these things at the same time (see Michael Connolly, Harlan Coben, Michael Dibdin, PD James, Ruth Rendell). Leon is just force-feeding us stuff and it's easy to see the writer's motivation behind it (oh, I'd better flesh out character!).
A note on the prose and dialogue - I found it difficult. With good writers it's like you are there listening in on a scene with the characters. In this book, it's obvious you're reading a book! There's a fundamental difference. Leon is not a good stylist; the dialogue is basic and lacks drive and nuance, and the descriptive passages unspectacular and add nothing to the atmosphere.
In short, this is a very average book. I'm very surprised something of this standard has been rewarded with a Silver Star. As a first draft, this book is acceptable, but as a finished product, no. It's a reasonable enough diversion for a holiday weekend, flight etc, but if you appreciate decent, well written, well structured crime writing, I'd suggest you look somewhere else. Michael Dibdin's Zen series, for example, is beautifully atmospheric and gives a real sense of the seedy underbelly of Italian crime.
I'm mollified a little by reading others' reviews, so I'm awarding an extra star - the other reviewers have valid points and even though I seem to have hammered it as a novel, it's not THAT bad. But it is being done better in many other places.
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Crime and Justice
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Most of us think of crime and punishment as being linked. Donna Leon makes the case for justice following crime instead of punishment in this interesting debut novel in the Guido Brunetti series.
Where in most mystery novels, the story focuses on the crime or the investigation, Death at La Fenice instead develops the victim's character as its primary focus. Many fictional detectives consider knowing about the victim to be essential, but few mysteries pretty much focus on that one element to the exclusion of most other elements. I like character development, but I thought this approach was a little flawed in that without tapes, documents, and other character-created evidence you cannot really learn very much about a person who isn't alive during most of the story.
I liked the way that Venice played a role beyond being simply context by helping to define the story and the crime. As someone who loves Venice very much, a good part of the joy of this book came for me in references to locations I have visited.
Guido Brunetti is a most appealing detective. He's more like the private eyes in noir stories than he is a Venice police commissario, but that's all to the good. His family situation, being married to the daughter of a Venetian count, Paolo, also makes for amusing complications which are nicely developed in this story.
The crime is also offbeat enough to arouse interesting speculations among curious readers. During a performance of La Traviata, the opera's conductor, the world-famous Helmut Wellauer, is found dead after the second intermission. While hundreds had access to kill him, who had motive? It turns out that many had good motives. So how do you boil it down to find the criminal? That's quite difficult. Donna Leon plays fair and gives you all the clues you need to figure out what actually happened. From there, you'll have to decide what you would do.
Those who love opera will also enjoy the references to what makes for good opera and the politics behind the performances.
If you like to think of bureaucracies as inept and filled with incompetents, you'll enjoy meeting Guido's boss, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta. The relationship between Patta, the buffoon, and Brunetti is filled with much good humor that plays on Patta's strong inclination to do no work and to receive all credit for any successes.
The book's main drawback is that Wellauer is someone you won't have much sympathy for, and you'll enjoy even less learning about his bad habits. I'm sure that many crime victims are equally undesirable, but the novel labors a bit more than it might have with a victim about whom you could feel more neutral.
There are many fine novels in this series, and I do recommend you read this one. After all, you want to understand the context for the series don't you? Ah, Venice!
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