Give Unto Others by Donna Leon

Give Unto Others by Donna Leon
Buy Give Unto Others by Donna Leon at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Crime
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: It might be the 31st book in the series but it's another absolute cracker and I read long into the night to finish it. Highly recommended.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 304	Date: March 2022
Publisher: Hutchinson Heinemann
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1529151602
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Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changed. The pandemia stripped the city of its tourists for nearly two years and a lot of businesses have closed, most never to reopen. There's now a cascade of money as life begins again but even 125,000 deaths have not put an end to greed. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth are they going to launder all the money which is coming their way? Whilst he's thinking about this, Brunetti encounters someone he's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he was a child. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem and she'd like Brunetti's advice.

Back at the office, Brunetti calls Claudia Griffoni to hear what Elisabetta has to say. It boils down to the fact that her daughter, Flora, is concerned about the way that her husband has been acting recently. He assures her that it's work and that she has no need to worry but Flora has been sufficiently concerned to confide in her mother. Enrico is a self-employed accountant. When he first started up on his own he did some work for his father-in-law, Bruno del Balzo, when he was setting up a charitable organisation. Bruno is closely involved with the hospital in Belize which he's supporting and goes out there for a month, twice a year.

Brunetti's conscious that there doesn't seem to have been a crime committed. It isn't against the law for husbands to be a little short with their wives and he wonders if he can justify spending police time for the benefit of someone he wouldn't even have described as a friend. Flora is a veterinarian on Burano and one night her surgery is broken into and a considerable amount of damage is done. One dog is quite badly injured. There have been numerous instances of 'baby gangs' breaking into empty shops in Venice to steal what has been left by the last tenants. Is this what's happened here, or does it relate to what Elisabetta Foscarini has told Brunetti and Griffoni?

There's a very blurred line which runs between the criminal and the non-criminal and Donna Leon probes it delicately. She captures Venice too, and in such eloquent language. There's very subtle, affectionate humour in what she has to say:

Long before computer chips could collect someone's personal data, their neighbours did.

It's a city where you're only a phone call away from someone who can put you in personal touch with the person who interests you. Leon is American. She no longer lives in Venice (she still spends about a week a month there) but I cannot help but think of her as European if not Italian.

The characterisation is - as ever - perfect. You'll meet old friends but still connect with all the characters even if you've not met them before. Every one of them comes off the page fully formed but with no wasted words. And the plot? Well, it's exquisite. I gave up trying to work out what was going to happen very early in the book - I was content just to be in the story - but the ending still took me completely by surprise. It was perfect. Give Unto Others is a superb read and highly recommended.

I think we're all tired of the pandemic but I was quite shocked to realise what it had really been like at the beginning when I read The Locked Room (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths.

Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti Novels in Chronological Order

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