Fatal Remedies by
Donna Leon
hbk out February 99
Published by Macmillan
at £15.99
Venice may be known as La Serenissima, but life is anything but serene for Commissario Guido Brunetti in Donna Leon's latest chronicle of her Italian policeman. For once, the phone call in the middle of the night doesn't bring news of murder and mayhem, but what it does reveal is even worse. His wife, respected academic and patrician Paola has thrown a brick through a travel agency window.
It doesn't help that within days of her vandalism the agency's owner is found dead in decidedly suspicious circumstances. As Brunetti unravels the tangled web of lies, conspiracy and callous exploitation that feeds like a worm of corruption under the respectable surfaces of his city, his career is subjected to as much pressure as his marriage.
Donna Leon writes about Venice like a lover who sees all her paramour's faults and is still enthralled. With every book, her characterisation of Brunetti, his family and his colleagues grows deeper and more complex. Rich in atmosphere, Fatal Remedies manages to be both a revelation of human nature at its best and worst and a cunningly constructed mystery.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
