Promotional Information

The stunning new Commissario Brunetti mystery.

About the Author

Donna Leon was named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers. She is an award-winning crime novelist, celebrated for the bestselling Brunetti series. Donna has lived in Venice for thirty years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Donna's books have been translated into 35 languages and have been published around the world. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; including Friends in High Places, which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Fatal Remedies, Doctored Evidence, A Sea of Troubles and Beastly Things.

Reviews

The virtues of Leon's writing are all on display in ... Doctored Evidence ... [Leon] has a wonderful feeling for the social complexities of Venice, where corruption is as old and deep and treacherous as the canals ... Like all the best detective fiction, Doctored Evidence not only solves a mystery, but also anatomises the setting in which the crime occurred
*Daily Mail*

Leon's talent for sketching Venice with equal measures of affection and exasperation is undimmed, and Brunetti and his serious, thoughtful wife Paola remain subtle and pleasing creations
*Sunday Times*

Fans of Leon will not be disappointed . . . She has crafted yet another expert mystery
*The Baltimore Sun*

Deeply satisfying and often very funny
*The Miami Herald*

A beautifully cadenced mystery . . . no one is more graceful and accomplished than Donna Leon
*The Washington Post*

While a bit too slow to rank among her best, Leon's 13th atmospheric Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery (after 2003's Uniform Justice) still offers many pleasures, including a clever puzzle. When greedy, curmudgeonly Maria Grazia Battestini is murdered, the Venetian police suspect her Romanian housekeeper, whom they shoot when she tries to evade questioning. The case seems closed until a neighbor returns from a trip, claiming the housekeeper's innocence. Hardworking, cynical Brunetti, devoted to his family, succulent meals and justice, an honest man in a corrupt police department, takes over the case. He finds that Battestini's several bank accounts were transferred out of Italy upon her death, the source of the money unknown. Brunetti suspects that her lawyer, Roberta Marieschi, and niece, Graziella Simionato, who shared power of attorney, were in cahoots and that the money came from blackmail. After several false leads and assiduous attention to detail, Brunetti discovers the key to the crime-pride, rather than greed, with the title a pun on the motive-meanwhile one-upping his workplace enemy, the ambitious, careless Lieutenant Scarpa. Leon evokes the real Venice, not the place of romantic novels or glitzy travel guides but the gritty, inbred city of dishonest politicians and hamlet-like neighborhoods filled with gossip. (Apr. 20) Forecast: Uniform Justice was the #1 Book Sense 76 title for September 2003. Aided by a four-city author tour and Penguin reissues of earlier Brunetti titles in paperback, this one will keep up the momentum for Leon, who has won the Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

The virtues of Leon's writing are all on display in ... Doctored Evidence ... [Leon] has a wonderful feeling for the social complexities of Venice, where corruption is as old and deep and treacherous as the canals ... Like all the best detective fiction, Doctored Evidence not only solves a mystery, but also anatomises the setting in which the crime occurred * Daily Mail *
Leon's talent for sketching Venice with equal measures of affection and exasperation is undimmed, and Brunetti and his serious, thoughtful wife Paola remain subtle and pleasing creations * Sunday Times *
Fans of Leon will not be disappointed . . . She has crafted yet another expert mystery * The Baltimore Sun *
Deeply satisfying and often very funny * The Miami Herald *
A beautifully cadenced mystery . . . no one is more graceful and accomplished than Donna Leon * The Washington Post *