Review – Death and Judgment

Posted on January 16th, 2010

Death and Judgment

By Donna Leon

Penguin / Grove Press

$7.99

ISBN 0-14-303582-7

Paperback

Mystery Thriller

You never know who you can believe. That is the lesson Commissario Guido Brunetti has learned repeatedly during his long career with the police in Venice, Italy. Now—when Carlo Trevisan, a prominent attorney, is murdered on a train traveling from Padua to Venice—Brunetti is ordered by his superiors to solve the case quickly and discretely, and Brunetti will once again confront the problem: who can you believe?

First, he must interview the murdered man’s grieving widow, Franca Trevisan, a woman whose social status and powerful friends immediately combine to make Brunetti’s task problematic. Next, Brunetti must talk with Ubaldo Lotto, the widow’s brother and a prominent figure in Trevisan’s legal practice.

Neither the victim’s widow nor the brother-in-law is believable or forthright. Each seems to know more, and each seems to be keeping a secret, but Brunetti is a patient and methodical investigator. He knows that he will—as always—eventually discover the truth and expose whatever secrets the widow and brother-in-law are so intent upon keeping.

Then—in an apparently unrelated incident, within a week of the Trevisan murder—an accountant is killed in nearby Padua. Investigators, however, soon discover Trevisan’s phone number—and many other puzzling phone numbers—among the accountant’s records. No one seems to understand the connection between Trevisan and the accountant, but—in a fortuitous discovery that brings the case uncomfortably close to Brunetti himself—the Venetian detective begins to put together the puzzling coincidences and clues:

First, Trevisan’s teenage daughter had said something earlier—to someone in whom Brunetti has a special, protective interest—about someone having tried to kidnap her. Was it merely the irresponsible tale-telling nonsense of a troubled adolescent? Or is there, in fact, a connection to her father’s murder?

Second, what of Ubaldo Lotto’s stubborn reluctance to give Brunetti a list of Trevisan’s clients? And why is Lotto blocking Brunetti’s attempts to access the murdered lawyer’s phone records? Is Lotto trying to hide something or protect someone?

Third, why had Lotto seemed so surprised when Brunetti talked to him about the accountant who had been murdered in Padua? Did Lotto know the accountant? If Lotto was concerned about the two murders within one week, why is he still being so much of an obstructionist in Brunetti’s investigation?

Brunetti—as he digs further into the Trevisan case—is increasingly bothered by the murders of the lawyer and the accountant. Murder, after all, as Brunetti sees it, has always been absolutely savage in the way “it mercilessly cut off possibility and stopped the victim from ever again achieving anything.” Then, when Brunetti thinks he is about the find some answers that might lead to the beginning of a solution, murder once again raises its ugly head in Venice. Key figures in the Trevisan investigation are being mercilessly murdered, and they will quite suddenly never again achieve anything.

Finally, though, Brunetti discovers an enormously important and shocking clue in which people are involved in acts of unspeakable savagery and unforgivable brutality. Now, with the stakes having been suddenly raised to such horrible levels, Brunetti must look beyond Venice and Italy—perhaps even to Eastern Europe and beyond—and he must act quickly to prevent further violence and murder.

In Death and Judgment, author Donna Leon, pulling out all the stops, has combined an engrossing plot, multifaceted characterizations, and intriguing themes in a cinematic narrative that takes readers to one of the world loveliest cities. The canals, neighborhoods, and citizens of Venice, however, within the pages of this entertaining novel are in danger of being tarnished by unspeakable corruption, villainy, and deviance. Fortunately—for Venice’s and readers’ sake—the sophisticated and passionate, shrewd and witty Commissario Guido Brunetti is one of crime fiction’s most interesting and accomplished detectives. So, in the end, we need not worry at all about Venice because all’s well that ends well, and—because of Brunetti—all in Death and Judgment ends very well indeed.

Tags: Accountant, Adolescent, Brunetti, Coincidences, Death And Judgment, Detective, Discovery, Donna Leon, Franca, Investigators, Mystery Thriller, Nonsense, Padua, Penguin, Phone Number, Phone Numbers, Superiors, Teenage Daughter, Ubaldo, Venice Italy
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