An Escape to Italy with Donna Leon

What author do you turn to for predictability? For a story that’s not too unlike one the author wrote previously? Perhaps, it’s a fantasy series set in a particular world (a la George R.R. Martin) or a mystery series featuring the same protagonist (a la Agatha Christie). It might even be a literary author whose books, while featuring fresh characters and storylines, offer consistent quality writing and beautiful insights (like Kazuo Ishiguro). For me, it’s the police procedurals of Donna Leon.

I’ve always read literary novels that brim with gorgeous language but lack a substantive plot. These books are rewarding for what they are. In fact, in most ways, they taught me how to write with deeper meaning and still inspire me. But when I discovered the crime works of Leon, I discovered an entirely new side of the novel. Donna Leon’s books aren’t weak on sentences, but they’re not there for the language and profound insights. They’re there for the story while featuring compelling plots and interesting characters and layered social commentary. They take me to Venice like a friend.

The Rewards of an Exotic Mystery

I’ve been working my way through her 25 novels about Commissario Guido Brunetti, a detective who solves crimes in Venice. When I read her first book, Death at La Fenice, I was struck by the serious, workaday style of her language. It’s sort of like mine. She also deeply loves a foreign city (in her case, Venice, in mine, Paris). I was drawn to the practical, middle-aged detective with an intellectual wife and sweet kids whose personality shows quiet intelligence and fair reasoning. Secondary characters are colorful but not clownish, spawning my endearment. I thought it a kick that she often describes Brunetti’s lunch and dinner meals in great detail, so much so that there’s now a cookbook with recipes for the meals he eats.

The setting of watery Venice offers rich history and a portal to Italian life. I spent a long summer in Italy, just after college, and have fond memories of Venice. To go there via Donna Leon’s imaginative stewardship delights me. That I can do it again and again through multiple books, delights me even more.

What’s most satisfying is that Brunetti is never in intense danger. As I read in bed, I don’t stress that he might die. I’ve got enough stress as a mom with a job and house and pets and blah, blah, blah. Brunetti survives each case. Justice is only spotty in these stories, a commentary on the corruption of the Italian system, but Brunetti serves as its moral compass. The characters around him often don’t survive, of course, and some circumstances of the murders he solves are gruesome, but this is the nature of a crime novel.

And so, I’ve found a favorite author who I can return to again and again to counter the unpredictability of life. To remind me that, despite what hectic chaos I have to get through, I can always escape briefly to live as an Italian on the trail of the truth amidst great art, deep history, dedicated religion, delicious food, and the warm sun.