Donna Leon

A wall of silence surrounds a cadet’s death at an elite military academy: “Superb . . . This is an outstanding book.” —Publishers Weekly
 
Detective Commissario Guido Brunetti has been called to investigate a parent’s worst nightmare. A young cadet has been found hanged, a presumed suicide, in Venice’s elite military academy.
 
Brunetti’s sorrow...

Two detectives go undercover in Venice, Italy, in the New York Times–bestselling series by “the undisputed crime fiction queen” (The Baltimore Sun).
 
A priest recently returned from years of missionary work has made a personal request of Commissario Guido Brunetti—but the police detective suspects the man’s motives. A new, American-style Protestant sect has begun to meet in Venice,...

“A smart and stylish fast-paced case of intrigue and corruption” in the Venetian-set, New York Times–bestselling mystery series (Los Angeles Times).
 
After a wealthy elderly woman is found brutally murdered in her Venetian apartment, the police suspect her maid, who has disappeared and is heading for her native Romania. But when it becomes clear the maid could not have had time to kill the old...

A conductor succumbs to cyanide at the famed Venice opera house, in the first mystery in the New York Times–bestselling, award-winning series.
 
During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder....

An Italian police detective looks into the deaths of two fishermen in an isolated island community: “Leon’s Venetian mysteries never disappoint.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
On a beautiful spring morning on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, a small boat moored at the docks suddenly explodes, killing two local clam fishermen. When it becomes clear that the...

" ... Commisario Guido Brunetti comes to the aid of a young nursing sister who has left her convent after five of her patients have died unexpectedly. In the course of his inquiries, Brunetti encounters an unusual cast of characters but discovers nothing that seems criminal. Is the nun simply creating a smoke screen to justify abandoning her vocation? Or has she stumbled onto something very real and very sinister? Something that places her own life...

“By far the best” in the New York Times–bestselling, Macallan Silver Dagger–winning series featuring Venetian detective Commissario Brunetti (Evening Standard).
 
In this vivid and atmospheric mystery, Commissario Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the construction of Brunetti’s apartment years before. What began as a red tape...

"The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties. In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. From a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent...

When acclaimed novelist Donna Leon is not conjuring up tales of crime and corruption in Venice, or reveling in delicious cuisine, she is listening to music. For Leon, patron of conductor Alan Curtis and his celebrated orchestra Il Complesso Barocco, that usually means the work of her favorite composer, George Frideric Handel. Over the years, Leon has noticed that the great musician filled his operas with arias that make reference to animals; rich...