Death at La Fenice: (Brunetti 1) (A Commissario Brunetti Mystery)

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Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder. I like him, as well as the fact that he adores his wife.

The lights dimmed, the hall grew dark, and the tension created by an ongoing performance mounted as the audience waited for the conductor to reappear on the podium. Slowly the hum of voices faded, the members of the orchestra stopped fidgeting in their seats, and the universal silence announced everyone’s readiness for the third and final act. The series features Commissario Guido Brunetti, family man, modest, moral, loyal and philosophical detective extraordinaire.The series’ popularity has also led to the publication of a cookbook, a tour book of Venice based upon Brunetti’s own walks, and a walking tour of Venice authorized by Donna Leon. Overall Reaction: This is the first book in the long running Commissario Brunetti series. I’ve been curious about Donna Leon for ages but have never gotten around to sampling any of her work. This book is available in the Kindle Unlimited program, at the moment, giving me a great excuse to finally see for myself why this series has endured. What a ripping first mystery, as beguiling and secretly sinister as Venice herself. Sparkling and irresistible.' Rita Mae Brown The 'novel' opens with a poisoning of a famous opera conductor. Instead of investigating the murder, commissario Brunetti is being very nice to all people involved, especially the potential female suspects, and does not really work on solving the murder, and why would Brunetti be doing that, when he can make a few calls and wait for all the clues to fall into his lap. For it's Venice and everyone knows everyone so why shouldn't Brunetti just wait for everyone to supply him with bits of predicable information that will lead to predictable end.... Literally, the man does NOTHING! Everyone else works for Brunetti, all he does is make a few calls and/or rely on people he knows to lay it out to him in endless monologues.....and the dialogues are agonizingly boring!

The first to talk were the players in the orchestra. A second violinist leaned over to the woman next to him and asked if she had made her vacation plans. In the second row, a bassoonist told an oboist that the Benetton sales were starting next day. The people in the first tiers of boxes, who could best see the musicians, soon imitated their soft chatter. The galleries joined in, and then those in orchestra seats, as though the wealthy would be the last to give in to this sort of behavior. Death at La Fenice (1992), the first novel by American academic and crime-writer Donna Leon, is the first of the internationally best-selling Commissario Brunetti mystery series, set in Venice, Italy. The novel won the Japanese Suntory prize, [1] and its sequel is Death in a Strange Country (1993).The first book in the internationally bestselling Guido Brunetti detective series in which a high society murder leads Guido to investigate the darker side of beautiful Venice. Death at La Fenice is the 1st book in the exciting Guido Brunetti Series by Donna Leon, set in the beautiful, romantic, mysterious and unique city of Venice. But as police procedurals - and first books in series in particular - go, this is a very accomplished read. There isn't the full complement of characters at the Questura as yet: Patta is there but there's no Ispettore Vianello, Lieutenant Scarpa or Signorina Elletra and apart from Patta the other staff at the Questura are two dimensional: it's Brunetti and the city of Venice who carry this story. Even Brunetti's wife Paola hasn't yet grown into her full glory. Brunetti finds out that Wellauer was moralistic and prejudiced against gays. He reneged on a deal with the gay director to place a friend of his in a performance, citing that he need not honor a deal with someone who is gay. He also threatened to tell Flavia's ex-husband about her lesbian affair with American millionaire archaeologist Brett Lynch, so that Flavia's abusive ex-husband could gain custody of their children. Brett admits that Flavia saw the conductor during intermission and that they fought about the threats. He immediately realizes that there’s a lot more about the victim than what he’s being told by the suspects …….his much younger wife and soprano, Flavia Petrelli and her lesbian lover, Brett Lynch and the people in his life who have been offended by his homophobic views. Brunetti also discovers Wellauer’s past as a Nazi sympathizer.

As I said before, the author left a few things to the reader. She did not spell out everything. What she did mention more than a couple of times was Guido's totally carefree disposition to accept drinks from everyone. Mostly strangers. This was cultural, but then Italy is both the country of knifing and poisoning, so I was left wondering what was happening with those pegs. The chief of Guido was nicely made up. In more ways than one too. He is a narcissistic, impatient, stupid, selfish, and lazy officer who got his job because he knew the right people. I find it interesting that among all these characters, Leon made this minor one the best looking one in the book. The character, called Patta, is very vivid to me. I pictured a middle aged Brandon Quinn as him. Blinded, Fasini shot up his a arm to shield his eyes. Still holding his arm raised in front of him, as if to protect himself from a blow, he began to speak: “Ladies and gentlemen,”and then he stopped, gesturing wildly with his left hand to the technician, who, realizing his error, switched off the light. Released from his temporary blindness, the man onthe stage started again. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret toinform you that Maestro Wellauer is unable to performance.” Whispers, questions, rose from the audience, silk rustled as heads turned, but he continued to speak above the noise. “His place will be taken by Maestro Longhi.” Before the hum could rise to drown him out, he asked, voice insistently calm,”Is there a doctor in the audience?” Wellauer made good on his threats to Flavia, as a letter comes from her husband's attorney, threatening action. Brunetti comforts Brett, telling her that they have no case without Wellauer's testimony. Then he visits Clemenza again and uncovers the true story. Clemenza's sister was only twelve, and she was raped and impregnated by Wellauer while he was having an affair with Clemenza. Putting the pieces together, Brunetti realizes that Elizabeth Wellauer, after finding that her husband sexually abused her daughter from a previous marriage, poisoned Wellauer with antibiotics to make him go deaf. Realizing that his music was gone, Wellauer killed himself. Brunetti reports the death simply as a suicide, not wanting to drag Elizabeth Wellauer's daughter through a hurtful court case. There is little violent crime in Venice, a serenely beautiful floating city of mystery and magic, history and decay. But the evil that does occasionally rear its head is the jurisdiction of Guido Brunetti, the suave, urbane vice-commissario of police and a genius at detection. Now all of his admirable abilities must come into play in the deadly affair of Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who died painfully from cyanide poisoning during an intermission at La Fenice.

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Fasini rubbed his hands together briskly, as if the gesture would help him decide what to say. “Maestro Wellauer has been . . . ” he began, but he found no satisfactory way to finish the sentence. From the first gallery, there came a burst of coughing; someone dropped a book, perhaps a purse; but the door to the corridor behind the orchestra pit remained dosed. Brunetti’s own character is made clear to the reader throughout the course of the novel; he is a family man who is extremely good at his job, preferring to investigate motive through looking at human dynamics and understanding each suspect, rather than relying on intuition. He stresses this to his wife Paola, who enjoys choosing who she believes is the culprit at the beginning of each case, and who Brunetti says is always wrong,

The writing style and the pacing make this novel a wonderful read. Leon does an excellent job of making the reader feel like they are part of the case. The mystery has a lot of twists and a bunch of fun characters that make it feel real. That is why it is hard to believe that Leon wrote the novel “as a joke.” Meanwhile, Brunetti learns that Wellauer may have been a Nazi and was definitely a womanizer. He hears about trouble with a now-elderly has-been opera singer, Clemenza Santina. He goes to see the singer, who is living in squalor, but she refuses to talk with him about the core of her hatred toward Wellauer. Brunetti finds out from a journalist the story that Wellauer impregnated Clemenza's sister, who died from an illegal abortion. Brunetti also uncovers that Wellauer was distracted before his death, seemed estranged from his wife, and learned from doctors that he was going deaf.This is the shortest summary to a book that I have written. The plot is a simple detective story that is told through the eyes of Brunetti. That direction works wonders as we get his unfiltered thoughts on everything including Italy. Part of what makes this novel so intriguing is Brunetti and how he perceives the world around him. This has not stopped the books’ popularity in other countries; a German TV series featuring Brunetti began in 2000, called simply Donna Leon , and has continued to release two episodes per year. I was unable to find a copy of this show to watch it, but was interested to see that Julia Jäger, playing Paola, was nominated for an Adolf Grimme Award for her acting in the series. Based upon the trailer I found for the show, it looks like the series has tried to stay true to the novels, and if you enjoy watching foreign language murder mystery shows, you might like Donna Leon . Death at La Fenice chronicles Commissario Guido Brunetti's investigation of the death by cyanide poisoning of renowned German conductor Maestro Helmut Wellauer in the middle of a performance of La Traviata at the Venice opera house, La Fenice. Brunetti learns that Wellauer is a scoundrel. Worst, Brunetti learns that Wellauer was a pedophile, raping young girls of 12 or 13. Brunetti realizes Wellauer's wife poisoned him because he raped her daughter by a previous marriage, not killing him but causing him to go deaf. Wellauer takes the cyanide himself, after realizing his hearing loss is permanent and severe, and Brunetti helps the widow cover up her misdeeds for the sake of her daughter. The setting is the Venice Opera House (La Fenice) and the victim is a famous conductor. I enjoyed this concept having worked in classical music and spent a great deal of time with opera singers. The descriptions rang true, although the disrespect shown to the music by the audience isn’t something I’ve ever experienced thankfully. It would annoy me just as much as a member of the audience as it would if I were performing. When famed conductor Helmut Wellauer is found dead in his dressing room between Acts 2 and 3 of the of LA TRAVIATA at the La Fenicia theatre, Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder by cyanide poisoning.