On this All Hallow’s Eve, it seems appropriate to share what the daytime book club of our University Woman’s Club has been reading.
Lilian Pruett hosted the review for our book club, and she shares with us great history about the author, as well as the read itself.
Get your cup of steamed apple cider or some other fall brew, curl up here, and have a read.
Scavenger hunt: bonus points if you find Pruett’s reference to our local hurricanes.
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Beastly Things by Donna Leon was published in 1992, and the book is an early one in a long, very successful series of detective novels. Leon was born in 1942 in New Jersey, schooled there and in Siena and Perugia, and has been based in Europe, primarily in Italy and Switzerland, with periods in London, Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia, teaching English and English Literature.
Along the way she started advanced degree work with a dissertation on the novels of Jane Austin. Caught in Iran by the 1979 revolution, she fled the country precipitously, in the process losing all her belongings, including drafts and supporting material for the dissertation. In the pre-computer days that meant years of research gathered on 4 x 6 library cards, replaceable only by redoing her research. Unwilling to do that, she returned to teaching for the University of Maryland branch in Vicenza.
She settled in Venice and there, while attending a performance at the famous 17th-century theater La Fenice, found inspiration for her first book, Death in La Fenice, published in 1992 in Switzerland. All her books are written in English, but when the first turned out to be a huge success, it was translated into German.
I first encountered the book during a regular visit with my old Salzburg friends who encouraged me to read it. Today, her novels are translated into some thirty languages, with the exception of Italian, at the author’s request. The series is set in Venice, Leon’s adopted home and, as the books often comment on various aspects of local culture and conditions, she does not want to disturb her peaceful life there by possibly ruffling some feathers.
How she made the transition from Austin’s novels to writing serial detective stories has not been explored anywhere as far as I could discover. The idea of creating a central recurring detective hero and following evolving cases is hardly a novel approach as illustrated by Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Christie’s Hercule Poirot, or closer to home Earle Stanley Garner’s Perry Mason, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, or—to give women their proper due—Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, or Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta.
As for the longevity of the series, Donna Leon may hold the record: to date there are 29 volumes documenting her hero’s successes, to Grafton’s 26, who has now run out of the letters of the alphabet (should she turn to the Greek alphabet, as the hurricanes of this year?). Leon has been turning out novels once, sometimes twice a year; the last one was published in 2019.
The recurring cast of characters has developed and matured in the course of the years. The main protagonist is Commissario Guido Brunetti, a man of modest but cultivated Venetian background, married to the daughter of one of the richest ancient noble families of the city, with several Doges in their family tree. Their two children and the in-laws play a role in the books, allowing glimpses into traditions of family life, their approach to child rearing, the differences between true Venetians and immediate mainlanders as well as Italians from other regions.
Brunetti displays some astounding characteristics: his bedtime reading is the Agamemnon saga and he regularly reads the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius for consolation. He is a very capable detective who believes in painstaking old-fashioned investigative work, but is not comfortable with aspects of the evolving technology (Note the story begins in the 1990s). Yet, he is not reluctant to use results technology provides, through the services of Signorina Elettra Zorzi, a secretary who prefers to work with him, sometimes against her and Brunetti’s boss, the pompous, grandstanding Vice Questor. There are other members of the Questura, all Venetians, who are loyal to Brunetti, enabling him to work cases following his own principles and essentially circumventing the inept official leader. They include Inspector Vianello, Dr. Rizzardi, the coroner, and Foa, captain of the Questura’s boat, ready to provide transportation around the city or to the mainland whenever needed.
I will not give away the details of the story; but, as in all other Leon books, it is well written, well researched, and there is always something to be learned. Suffice it to say that it involves discovery of a partially decomposed unidentifiable body of grotesque proportions found floating in the lagoon. This might have passed as an accidental drowning by another official, but the corpse arouses a vague recollection in Brunetti’s mind and causes him to undertake thorough examinations, pursue seemingly unconnected clues, and do personal visitations to a number of relevant locales. Eventually all of this leads to the revelation of a cunning, premeditated murder, with the victim being identified, the motives for the murder brought to light, and the perpetrator brought to justice. As in most of Leon’s books, a number of lesser participants in the crime are given a pass, because to pursue them would not be beneficial to the city and the region. Within that rough framework, Leon finds opportunity to critique Italian government and culture at large, the Venetian situation in particular, the state of cattle farming and the meat industry in the Veneto, the conflicts of development pursued by a distant central government without input by experienced local professionals, the malign influence of tourism on ecologically sensitive areas, and more.
Reading Leon is more than an entertaining detective story; one can keep learning.