Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice

Death at La Fenice

Donna Leon

Perennial Dark Alley, Jul 27, 2004, $13.95, 270 pp.

ISBN: 006074068X

Internationally renowned German conductor Helmut Wellauer was performing La Traviata at Teatro La Fenice when he failed to come out for the second act. A few minutes past the warning gong, someone asks if there is a doctor in the house? Dr. Rizzardi enters the maestro's dressing room to find Helmut dead.

Being Venice, the police arrive by boat rather quickly. Police Commissario Guido Brunetti leads the investigation into who would use cyanide poisoning, a painful way to die, on the conductor. Suspects abound from the victim's seemingly aloof spouse to musical peers and rivals. Soon Brunetti learns that Helmut was a Nazi sympathizer and once destroyed the careers of a singing trio. With no help from his martinet boss or from the two idiots assigned to assist him, Brunetti turns to his family, especially his wife Paula, for assistance on solving a homicide which has several viable suspects.

DEATH AT LA FENICE is an engaging Italian police procedural that showcases the city of canals as much as it does the investigation. Brunetti is a terrific protagonist struggling to solve a difficult case because several viable individuals with different but powerful motives wanted Helmut dead and seemingly would perform the act if the opportunity allowed so. Sub-genre fans will appreciate the investigation as Brunetti deals with the brass and his incompetent help, but as with many of these tales (see the recently released DOCTORED EVIDENCE), it is Donna Leon's aria to the city that she loves that has the audience riding the canals on the police boats guided by the author.

Harriet Klausner