So Shall You Reap

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In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon’s bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti’s own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim’s interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. Leon] has never become perfunctory, never failed to give us vivid portraits of people and of Venice, never lost her fine, disillusioned indignation.”— Ursula K. Le Guin, New York Times

Leon's elegant, witty prose . . . is a joy. One of the best European novelists around' Amanda Craig On a personal level, I was particularly amused by the letter she has had to write for the Questura in Venice to hand to visitors who stop there wanting to see Brunetti and his colorful associates. I have to admit that the last time I was in Venice I spent an afternoon on my own Brunetti tour, visiting places that were scenes in the various novels and some of his favorite haunts. I didn’t invade the Questura, but stood on a nearby bridge for photos and, of course, stopped for a coffee and tramezzini.

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To Guido's surprise, he recognises the murdered man, he had met him the previous day, the undocumented Sri Lankan, Inesh Kavinda, a peace loving Buddhist who did various job's for the Palazzo's owners, a Italian academic Professor Renato Molin and his wife, Gloria Forcolin, who he had met previously. There seems to be no motive for Kavinda's killing, accounts seem to bear out that he was a good man, although there are papers in his home that make no sense. They relate to Italy's turbulent political and violent history, with its kidnappings and disappearances, but why would the Sri Lankan man be interested in this? Guido follows a number of threads, aided by the able Signorina Elettra, who refines a method she learns of at a conference, along with Vianello and Commissario Claudia Griffoni.

As the author reaches her 9th decade [this makes] for a fascinating insight into her life and world, albeit with discretion and leaving tantalising hints at what lies beyond. One for the fans (and friends).’ Crime Time As always, Brunetti is highly attuned to (and sympathetic toward) the failings of the humans around him.”— Seattle Times Donna Leon is the popular author of 32 novels featuring Guido Brunetti, a Commissario di Polizia of the City of Venice. Trebitsch Produktion has adapted 26 of those books for German television.There is no better literary tour guide to Venice and the surrounding landscape than Leon, and each entry provides complex, memorable characters and storylines that touch the moral center of the human spirit . . . So Shall You Reap is authentic throughout and lives up to the lofty reputation that Donna Leon has rightly earned for this series, which never fails to enlighten with each new intriguing mystery.”— Book Reporter Leon notes that even at eighty, orchestra and writing keep her occupied. She mentions Irish and Italian immigrant grandfathers, remembers living on her grandfather’s farm for a year at the age of seven. In Donna Leon’s sure hands, the crime novel becomes an instrument for exploring social justice and universal truths about human behavior while beautifully telling a compelling story. (The Guardian) The beginning was the most fast pace and one of the sweetest parts of the book. They were called to the gay pride parade because there this year was a fight. Times are changing. Acceptance of people’s preferences and differences are opening up. The bulk of the time there was about a peaceful and kind undocumented Sri Larkin immigrant named Insen who was living in a guest house on a mansion’s property. And about his dog Sarah. There was a female Benediction monastery behind it on the compo who had a lovely garden with fruit trees. The garden by the mansion was overgrown and the mansion itself was very rundown. The couple who lived there were very badly matched. It was sad. A hand was found first in the water and that led to the finding of Insen’s body. Who is he? What’s he doing in Venice? Why undocumented? Was he a Tamil Tiger? And other questions were raised. At one stage I just thought that some of the writing was a little poor compared to the other books in the series.

I found the book uneven. Some parts were fascinating; others I found myself skimming from boredom. For example, several of the vignettes are about Venice. I was less than impressed by reading about her friend constructing a gondola. The story of Artu, the singing dachshund, was at least humorous. But I was fascinated by the pollution and the destruction that the cruise ships are causing. What is unsettling is that Guido spoke to the man only the day before his death, while trying to do his father-in-law a favour. Those who know Inesh Kavinda well pronounce him a good, kind man, so Guido is puzzled to find “the books he’d seen on the shelves: they were morally at odds with the man described to him” on topics like the Tamil Tigers and the Italian terrorists of the 1980s.Things soon take a more serious turn when a hand is seen in a canal and the body of an undocumented worker is soon found. In between times, the author goes off on tangents about long past terrorist acts in Italy, but most of the time spends paragraphs having the characters justify what they think and say. Donna Leon depicts the characters, food, culture, and people of Venice with a knowing eye for ‘just the right’ detail.” —Jennifer McCord, Bookreporter.com