Through a Glass, Darkly (Commissario Brunetti Book 15) Kindle Edition

tHEY DO A FINE JOB

I do enjoy Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti character. She definitely portrays him as being as honest a policeman and man as he could possibly be.In the offering, Guido is drawn to investigate the death for a man he had met that was killed just a few days after they’d spoken.What does glass blowing have to do with a possible murder on Murano. And, what should Brunetti really be investigating.

I have loved the entire Commissario Brunetti series by Donna Leon, with only a few exceptions, and Through A Glass, Darkly is one of them. I am accustomed to the leisurely development, often, of the crime and its solution, and there is always a social issue to be dealt with in Leon’s books. This time, the whole book seemed to move slowly, with great and somewhat repetitive emphasis on the environment issue of the discharge of pollutants into the Venice laguna, especially since Brunetti’s views on the subject didn’t seem especially clear. Scenes describing the hand-blown glass making on the island of Murano were interesting, and the conversations between the various characters were entertaining as always, but couldn’t compensate for the other, slower aspects of this novel. I still enjoyed it, but was relieved when it ended, somewhat abruptly. So I recommend the book, even though it is not Leon’s best work.

Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti is one of the most charming detectives currently available. This series rests on the canals of Venice, the character of Venetians and the sympathetic,intelligent Commissario who continues to try to find the murderer in the labyrinth of politics, tax avoidence and personal relationships that mark, but manage not to spoil, his beloved Venice. Each of Donna Leon's series installments increasingly uses the crime to discuss and explore a larger social issue: drugs, immigration, homosexuality, etc. In Through A Glass, Darkly the issue is pollution and for the first time, it disappoints. For the first time, the crime and its implications take a back seat to the exposition about pollution, and even that is done with less than her normally more subtle skill. Some lesser characters have either disappeared or hit a wall. What happened to comical Alvise and his very funny inability to take a message? Signorina Ellectra, the beautiful secretary whose serene devious skills so awe Brunetti seems to have been developed as far as she can go, and is a shadow of her usual clever self. Leon is required to spend a fair amount of time explaining the mechanics involved in the commission of a crime which leaks the tension out of the murder at hand. Most surprisingly, Leon fails to develop her murderer's character as one who is capable of the crime, which is a 180 degree turn in her usual wonderful grip of the psychology of often 'accidental' murderers. I am one of the legions of Donna Leon's fans. Her history as an English professor (which is Brunetti's wife's position as well) has always informed the series, with references to Jane Austen and Henry James, ancient history and, this time, Dante. She writes easily, sometimes wonderfully evoking the paradoxes of modern Venice (but not this time). Brunetti is the man you want to share a caffe and perhaps some pasta with. But as anxious as I am for the next book, I hope Leon can take a break to regather her formidable strengths and feel less obliged to bring out just another book. With a little rest, and a glass of prosecco, and a few more days to let her mind wander, I am sure she will return to form. I'll go visit with Magdalen Nabb's Marshall Guarnacci in Florence while Ms. Leon is resting.

A captivating plot with a twist as to who will be the murder victim. The rise of Vianello to become an inspector brought in a new and engaging element. A hope for more interaction between the two characters.

It was a fairly quick read with a few twists and turns. It had a very abrupt ending though. I liked it

Interesting and readable, with beautiful background of Venice and its pollution contrasted with the floral scents of spring. Far too much detail devoted to the how-to of glass blowing and the job of the plumbers who clean the tanks and far too little on Brunetti's family life and on developing the character of the murderer. Not much tension and not as much wry humor as found in the previous Brunetti novels. The usual characters -- Vianello, Signora Elettra, Patta -- are pale reflections of their usually vibrant, strong selves. Some characters, like Ribetti and Pucetti, are introduced and then dropped too quickly. While the ending doesn't generally resolve the crime in Leon's Brunetti books, I found the ending to this book surprisingly abrupt. Still, if one is a fan of the Brunetti series, this book will hold your interest, but not with a deathlike grip.

Guido has put his grey cells to work checking and rechecking information, formulating a theory and, putting the pieces together to get the criminal.

This is the first Donna Leon book I have read. It certainly won’t be the last. Her characters are completely believable, she knows Venice intimately and constructs a wholly engaging story full of everyday details such as food, passages from books, teenagers’ moaning - stuff that makes it all so human and approachable. The author reveals Brunetti’s fragmented thoughts and intuitions, which the reader is invited to connect, slowly but surely, for himself. Then a little happenstance conversation or observation swings the entire tale on a pivot, like a sudden gust of wind turning a weathervane in a new and ominous direction. This is cleverly crafted, intelligent writing. As a writer myself, I doff my cap in respect and gratitude. Now, I look forward to more, more, more!

I have really enjoyed all the Brunetti novels I've read so far but this one was a slog. Lots of detail re glassmaking in Murano, which was fine as it was important to the story, but I felt Brunetti would have preferred to have been at home reading Gibbon. The plot focuses on industrial pollution and the various character, including his trusty sidekick Vianello, all have their comments or theories about it. I'm afraid I gave up half way and passed the novel on, hence the 3 star rating. Not one of Leon's best.

What could be more Venetian than glass produced for centuries on the island of Murano? Apart from the canals and the Laguna, Venetia Glass defines the city as a centre of both trade and culture, so why are people beginning to question the trade, protest about it and even get arrested for their opposition to something so quintessential? This is what Guido Brunetti asks himself when, with Vianello, he goes to help release a man from police custody; a man whose father-in-law is a glass-maker and furnace owner, who has threatened his son-in-law with violence, even death, if he continues to make trouble for him. Is a crime about to be committed: Brunetti begins to investigate without police sanction and finds a mystery. People's livelihoods, ecology, politics, underhand malpractice, death; who, if anyone, is really guilty, or are these just coincidences and accidents of fate? Brunetti investigates and finds a surprising number of people within and out of the questura who are really concerned with what is happening on Murano, but can anyone actually be held to account? Through a glass darkly is a narrative that takes time to unravel, but the writing is good and the plot intriguing.

Donna Leon's fifteenth instalment in the Commissario Brunetti series lives up to the high standards of the previous stories. This time the surprise is that no crime appears to have been committed until exactly halfway through the book. (Was this done as a bet?) So the first half of the book is a mixture of the everyday life in Venice and of the development of a duel between a father and his son-in-law, the former threatening to kill the latter. But it's a mark of the detective novel genre that expectations are rarely met when tensions are made plain so explicitly. In fact, if truth be told, this first half of the book could have done with a little more tension.As usual with this series of detective novels, it's always a challenge to see if preconceptions engendered by the title are lived up to by events. All I will say here, without giving too much of the plot away, is that Venice is well known as a centre for glass sculpting, the furnaces for which have for centuries been concentrated on the adjacent island of Murano.As usual, Donna Leon makes the story all the more believable by the little details she includes in the text. Thus, for example, Vianello turns up at the scene of the crime with gloves but no mask, so Brunetti has to ask another officer for a spare one. This action serves no purpose in the plot. So, is it mere filling? No, it makes the story more cinematic and true to the reader. Another example would be when Brunetti enters the police launch only to find the pilot busy wrapping some tape around a wire.Where reality does occasionally seem to be stretched is in the relationship Brunetti has with the two leading ladies in his life (excluding his daughter, of course). Paola seems ever to be the perfect wife, whilst colleague Elettra is the perfect source of information. Brunetti would be nowhere without them. (And it is surely incorrect to state in this novel that Elettra had only been working for Patta for six years.)In previous reviews I have mentioned how Donna Leon's endings are often unsatisfactory because of inherent faults in the Italian legal system. Indeed, in this instalment she has Brunetti consider how, "It had been some time since criminal associations or the evidence of criminal behaviour had served as an impediment to political office." Yet somehow this time the ending is also unsatisfactory in literary terms. Yes, political decisions result in an anticlimax, but there is no release of tension: indeed, no real tension is created for the reader in the first place.Still, it was an enjoyable ride around the northern shores of the city all the same.

In 'Through a Glass Darkly' Commissario Guido Brunetti is uplifted at the first signs of spring and abandons his office for the island of Murano. No crime has been committed but a friend of one of his colleagues has been threatened by his father-in-law and Brunetti decides to do a bit of unauthorised questioning. A ponderous start but anyone lucky enough to have been to the glass making factories of Murano will instantly recognise the atmospheric backdrops described by Donna Leon. The production of glass plays an integral role in the plot and is dealt with in some detail but doesn't come across as padding. The story gathers pace when a corpse finally appears, as does Brunetti's wife who makes her usual significant contribution to the puzzle. Leon's theme for the story is industrial pollution and she makes her point admirably. Apart from the usual brief swipe at tourists early on the sights and sounds of Venice are woven into a passable 'whodunit and why?' that ends with justice being done. Probably.