JACKET NOTES:  Donna Leon’s wryly lyrical suspense novels set in Venice have established her as one of the preeminent practitioners of what might be called the exotic procedural. Leon is at the apex of her award-winning form in Death and Judgment, in which suavely determined police commissario Guido Brunetti must descend into Venice’s underworld to crack a deadly vice ring run by the cream of the city’s society.
On his way to work one morning, Brunetti is accosted by headlines screaming from a newsstand. One paper screams loudest: “The Train of Death.” A powerful attorney has been found shot to death on a train from Padua to Venice, but, for all the sensational headlines, only Brunetti suspects more that a robbery gone awry. A few days into his investigation, his suspicions solidify when the corpse of a high-powered accountant turns up--an apparent suicide--and Brunetti struggles to find a connections between the two deaths. His search leads past the disapproving gaze of his oily superior, Patta, through the bustling campos and charming canals of the tourist’s Venice to seedy nightspots only residents know (and would rather avoid). An informative prostitute, a pair of eyeglasses, and an illicit videotape finally converge to show Brunetti the scope and horror of the case--and international web of exploitation, vice, and murder, orchestrated by Venice’s wealthiest and most powerful citizesns.
Admirers of Donna Leon’s singular series will find Death and Judgment her most complex and intensely realized novel.
(©HarperCollins)