Drawing Conclusions - Softcover

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.

*Starred Review* Leons twentieth novel starring Venetian police commissario Guido Brunetti is one of her best. But why? Not because she breaks new ground, either in terms of the characters or the story. This tale of the murder of a retired teacher who was helping abused women escape their abusers offers a sensitive but never by-the-numbers exploration of a contemporary social problem, as do many of the other novels in the series, and it takes plenty of breaks between the crime-solving to portray fan favorite Brunetti the family man, interacting joyously with his wife and children. It also delivers a typically Leon-style ambiguous ending in which traditional justice is either less important than or even detrimental to Brunettis real concern: doing his best to set things right for the various troubled souls he encounters in the course of his investigation. So what makes the book stand out? Its simply this: Brunetti walks around Venice a lot in this novel, and when he walks, he muses. And when he muses, the reader listens almost hypnotically, transfixed by the somehow ennobling ordinariness of this remarkable mans humanity but also by the subtlety of his mind and his absolute refusal to succumb to the tyranny of bureaucrats and moralists. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Leons popularity among mystery fans has grown steadily, but over the last several years, she has become a must-read for all those who favor character-driven crime stories. She is especially popular in libraries and among librarian mystery readers. --Bill Ott