Rating: 
Summary: A mystery with a disturbing twist
Review: This book will please not only fans of good mysteries, but also opera lovers. Commissario Brunetti has to solve the death of a famous conductor who is poisoned during a performance of "La Traviata". All the usual stereotypical characters of the stage are presents (the gay director, the primadonna etc.), and all of them are suspects. But what begins as a simple murder mystery takes a chilling turn as more and more about the murdered conductor becomes known.
Rating:
Summary: Poetic Justice
Review: This novel won the Suntory Prize for best suspense novel of 1991. When a world famous conductor dies from drinking cyanide laced coffee during the second intermission at the opera, Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police, is called in to investigate. The conductor was world-renouned, but was a self centered vain individual who had prejudices and vices. He was respected but not well liked. Some people despised him. Guido has the task of sorting out the motives of various suspects, and digging into the past of the victim. The case turns up some surprising revelations. Guido has his own sense of justice and law enforcement. He has to determine what to report, and how to report it. The ending of the story is not quite what you might guess, but there are some clues along the way. As in the author's other novels set in Venice, there is a lot of information about the city, and some amount of wining and dining. Also, there is information about Guido's wealthy father-in-law, who really wanted Guido to go into banking. As Guido puts it, they both deal with the same kind of people, but he can send them to prison while his father-in-law has to invite them to dinner.
Rating: 
Summary: Turgid
Review: This one never took off for me. I wanted to like it, really I did, but the plot was too repetitive. Why did we have to experience the investigation of the crime with the detective (interviews with suspects etc), only to have him repeating what he had seen/done to his colleagues, his wife etc? Does Leon think her readers are so stupid that every twist of the plot has to be hammered home? I'm afraid that after getting a third of the way through I almost fell asleep waiting for something, ANYTHING, to happen.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent debut
Review: This, the first in Donna Leon's series about the engaging Commissario Brunetti, is an excellent start. If Brunetti engages you here, you will want to come back for more. As you do, you will learn more about him and the 'supporting cast' of regular characters. One of the delights of the series is that Venice itself unfolds in all its magnificent moods and beauties as the series progresses. You don't really need to read this series in order, unlike Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series, which definitely benefits from sequential reading). Whilst you do learn more about Brunetti, his family relationships, motivationsa nd political points of view as the series progresses, stand-alone reading does not spoil another book in the series. Having said that, if you have alraedy read later books, you will find this book is not as 'opened out' in setting and characterisation, and one of the most beloved characters, Signorina Elettera, does not appear until about Book 4! Don't let that stop you 'going back' and experiencing this engaging story though!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent debut
Review: This, the first in Donna Leon's series about the engaging Commissario Brunetti, is an excellent start. If Brunetti engages you here, you will want to come back for more. As you do, you will learn more about him and the 'supporting cast' of regular characters. One of the delights of the series is that Venice itself unfolds in all its magnificent moods and beauties as the series progresses. You don't really need to read this series in order, unlike Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series, which definitely benefits from sequential reading). Whilst you do learn more about Brunetti, his family relationships, motivationsa nd political points of view as the series progresses, stand-alone reading does not spoil another book in the series. Having said that, if you have alraedy read later books, you will find this book is not as 'opened out' in setting and characterisation, and one of the most beloved characters, Signorina Elettera, does not appear until about Book 4! Don't let that stop you 'going back' and experiencing this engaging story though!
Rating:
Summary: Leon debuts with outstanding thriller!
Review: Venice is for lovers, or so they say. It is also the setting in this thriller, the first of a series by Donna Leon, titled "Death at La Fenice." La Fenice is the name of Venice's famed opera house and in this novel, death is the event de jour, as a well-known German conductor Helmut Wellauer is found dead in his dressing room, shortly before he was to conduct "La Traviata." Of course, the show must go on. Of course, the police must be called. And we are introduced to Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police in Venice. He's also a brilliant detective. With suspects galore, Brunetti finds the early going to be confusing and not all what the "facts" may seem. In Brunetti, Donna Leon has created the quintessential police detective. He is a man whom we are proud to call an acquaintance as we follow his trail in all the Leon books. She describes him: "He was a surprisingly neat man: tie carefully knotted, hair shorter than was the fashion; even his ears lay close to his head, as if reluctant to call attention to themselves. His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman." Leon, in addition to being a first rate novelist, has been an American English teacher aboard, and healthy international sales have made her vision of Venice well known. She seems to love the city, but with an attitude that shows her feet are on the ground. She lets Brunetti characterize the city: "And then he was at the water's edge, the bridge to his right. How typically Venetian it was, looking, from a distance, lofty and ethereal but revealing itself, upon closer reflection, to be firmly grounded in the mud of the city." One of the chief suspects is diva and prima donna soprano Flavia Petrelli, who certainly has motive, and is high on Brunetti's list. Flavia, along with her American archeologist and companion Brett Lynch, present more than a conundrum to Brunetti. (We are re-introduced to them in a later book Acqua Alta.) This is no easy crime for the commissario to solve. Leon creates, certainly, one of the best police procedurals of the last decade. Her books are hard to come by in the U.S., but she has a large following in international circles, especially in Germany and in England. While it is not necessary to read her books in order, naturally, her progression moves more smoothly when done so. "Death at La Fenice" is pure symphony and not a note is to be missed. Billyjhobbs@tyler.net
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed every minute
Review: What a fun book! This was my first Donna Leon book, and I'll definitely be reading more. Brunetti is such a likable character, though even the less likable ones have their endearing quirks. Leon has a nice style, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once at some of the humorous interactions and observations she depicts. I gave this 4 instead of 5 stars because I thought the resolution of the book didn't quite work as well as the rest of the book. (I don't want to say too much! You'll have to read it.)
Rating:
Summary: What FUN the Brunetti mysteries are!!
Review: While I waited for a flight in Venice, I wandered into the bookshop in the little airport there and picked up a handful of Donna Leon's mysteries. I was DELIGHTED! Leon is a University of Maryland professor seconded to a University in the Veneto and she has developed a sweet Venetian detective protagonist, Guido Brunetti. La Fenice (The Phoenix, in Italian) is the famous Venetian opera house and serves as the crime scene for Brunetti's first case. When a famous Austrian orchestra conductor, Helmut Wellauer, is discovered in his dressing room after the second act, dead of cyanide poisoning, Guido must find not only the killer but the motive of course. His search takes him into the sexually perverse past (distant AND recent) of the conductor but also finds him confronting any number of people who are likely suspects including most of the people he worked with and a number of family members. One of the most attractive things about Leon's detective is that he is an amiable, competent family man who is dealing with the quotidian: moody teenaged son, bouncy sure-footed pre-teen daughter, a headstrong and likable wife (an English professor) in addition to an INcompetent power-insecure supervisor who does little but obstruct Brunetti's efforts. The discovery of the murderer is so complicated and the final twist in the end so neatly and tidily closes the case that I was hooked and couldn't wait to read the next one. I have always loved murder mysteries (as one reviewer calls "procedural police mysteries"), and Leon's are among the finest.
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