Donna Leon: Read and Savor
When I tell you about Donna Leon, I am really introducing you to a friend. I can’t remember when we met, but I can tell you that I seek her out whenever I can. Just listing her books, I realized there were several I hadn’t seen and I ordered them immediately, from the Amazon re-sellers.
“Why the resellers?” you are asking. Donna Leon is not that easy to find, in the United States. Some of the books in her series seem to have been printed only in the UK, which is a pity, because The Donna Leon books really need to be read in order.
While they can be a quick read, they are better read slowly and savored. It’s not that hard. Her humor is subtle, sometimes even sly. Commissario Guido Brunetti, her main character, lives in Venice. He has a family, a sweet wife – Paola, and a daughter and a son. He eats Venetian meals, he lives in an illegal Venetian apartment, he has a glass of wine or two with his lunch. It helps to read the books in order, as his children grow from childhood to teen-agers, and to grow older with him as he solves his cases.
But in Donna Leon’s books, solving the cases is not the goal. As often as not, even while Brunetti solves the case, justice is not served. The books are about the living conditions and social realities of life in Venice, and in Italy. The books are about painful subjects – child prostitution, traffic in women, blood diamonds and African immigrants, and about art fraud and Mafia crime and big business. And the book is about Venetian and Italian interconnections, so that some crimes just disappear, some evidence just disappears, and Brunetti’s dunderhead of a boss tells him to just look the other way.
While each book is deceptively short, and written in clear, simple language, the books are richly complex, weaving a myriad of details into each page.
Thanks to Donna Leon, I know what it is like on a cold, rainy day in Venice, when the water rises and you have to try to walk on raised boards to get where you are going. I know what it is like to have a family emergency and the police vaporetto is in use elsewhere and to try to figure out the fastest way to run home, crossing bridges, grabbing a taxi, complicated by the canal system and tourist infestations in Venice. I know when policement get together for lunch in Venice, you don’t talk business until AFTER you have finished your exquisite pasta with truffles, accompanied by a glass or two of the fabulous house wine. Donna Leon has taken me there.
In Death and Judgement, the book I just finished, Brunetti is called by a police sergeant who has arrested a former police sergeant and wants Brunetti to come to the station. Brunetti’s conversations with the arresting sergeant always require a lot of patience:
(Brunetti) “Did the people in Mestre tell you to make out an arrest report?”
“Well, no, sir,” Alvise said after a particularly long pause. “They told Topa to come back here and make a report about what happened. The only form I saw on the desk was an arrest report, so I thought I should use that.”
“Why didn’t you let him call me, officer?”
“Oh, he’d already called his wife, and I know they’re supposed to get one phone call.”
“That’s on television, officer, on American television,” Brunetti said, straining towards patience.
We’ve all been there. Dealing with those who think they understand, and their understanding is . . . imperfect.
In another part of this book, in which the major issue is the big business of trafficking in women for prostitution, Brunetti is having a conversation with his wife:
Paula pulled gently on his hand. “Why do you use them?”
“Hum?” Brunetti asked, not really paying attention.
“Why do you use whores?” Then, before he could misunderstand, she clarified the question. “Men, that is. Not you. Men.”
He picked up their joined hands and waved them in the air, a vague, aimless gesture. “Guiltless sex, I guess. No strings, no obligations. No need to be polite.”
“Doesn’t sound very appealing,” Paola said, and then added “But I suppose women always want to sentimentalize sex.”
“Yes, you do.” Brunetti said.
Paola freed her hand from his hand and got to her feet. She glanced down at her husband for a moment, then went into the kitchen to begin dinner.
If you are reading that interchange too quickly, too superficially, you will totally miss the significance of the last sentence. If you have been married a long time, you will totally understand that a whole lot happened. This is one of the things I love about Donna Leon.
Death at La Fenice
Death in a Strange Country
Dressed for Death
A Venetian Reckoning
Acqua Alta
The Death of Faith
A Noble Radiance
Fatal Remedies
Friends in High Places
A Sea of Trouble
Willful Behavior
Uniform Justice
Doctored Evidence
Blood From a Stone
Through a Glass Darkly
Kuwaiti Drugged, Robbed in Thailand
Today in the Kuwait Times:
“Thailand/Kuwait. A Kuwaiti claims he was drugged and robbed at a hotel in Thailand. The 45 year old man stumbled from his room at the Marine Palace Hotel in South Patayya, Thailand yesterday morning, telling the reception staff that two women had stolen 10,000 Baht (around KD 82) in cash, a digital camera and a mobile phone.
The women had earlier entered the hotel, telling reception that they were going to the room occupied by the victim. They allowed the reception staff to take photocopies of their civil ID’s, reported local press yesterday. Arrest warrents for both the women, a 20 year old from Bangkok and a 21 year old from Nhakon Sawan Province were issued.”
Comment: I would love to know the rest of THIS story.
Arabesk and Jon Courtenay Grimwood
I am blessed with friends and family who share books, and Pashazade came into my life courtesy of Little Diamond, my globe-trotting glamourous niece. She always leaves a trail of books as she wanders hither and yon. Some of them are just too deep for me, or need too much attention. This series, the Arabesk Trilogy by Jon Courtenay Grimwood almost fell in that category.
I missed a clue. I kept trying to start the first volume, Pashazade, but was having a problem keeping up with the plot and the technology. I would go back and read again, trying to figure out what I was missing. I know I’m living in Kuwait, but I read! I keep up with the news! When did all this new stuff happen?
And then I just happened to look at the cover of the book and it all became clear – it is a parallel world, it is science fiction, and once I started reading and accepting all the strange words and implants as literary license, the book became fun, and intriguing, and very very hard to put down. And then I had to wait while the second and third volumes (Effendi and Felaheen) because the series is that much fun.
The main character, Ashraf al-Mansur has a complicated past. The plot is complex enough, but Ashraf doesn’t know who he is, we don’t know who he is, and we have to take time out from the plot now and then to get another piece of the puzzle. Fortunately, the puzzle pieces are in all kinds of cool places – Alexandria (but a different Alexandria from current day Alexandria) and the Sudan) but a slightly different Sudan, with a prophetic edge to it) and Seattle and a mental institution, and Tunis and the desert oases . . . oh, this is a lot of fun.
So Ashraf starts out in Alexandria, with his Aunt Nafisa who lives in this marvelous old madresa in Al Iskandriya, but then his aunt is killed, Ashraf becomes guardian to an exceedingly bright and introverted young girl, and falls in love with a young woman with whom he refused an arranged marriage.
Ashraf has friends in high places, is believed to have relations in high places, and although he gets into the worst situations, he has WASTA and a lot of problems just disappear. (For my non-Kuwaiti readers, wasta is sort of like the-power-of-connection-and-who-you-know-and-maybe-who-owes-you-a-favor-or-might-be-open-to-a-little-encouragement). These connections get people killed in the Arabesk trilogy, threaten chaos and mutilation and disaster, and take you on a great ride. Oh! Did I mention this is also a mystery, romance and has political intrigue, too?
It’s modern day – or maybe a year or two in the future – and with a huge twist in the universe here and there, so that it seems familiar, but it isn’t. There are dark shadows and differences that can be critical. And it has a whole raft of “who’s your ally?” kind of situations. It is a richly textured romp, and you are along for the ride. Don’t fight it, just lean back and hang on.
It is pure escapism, no great deep thoughts here. When the trilogy ends, however, you remember the characters, you remember the plots, and you still grin about them months later.
Pashazade, the first volume, is available through Amazon in hardcover and paperback. Paperback starts under $5.00, through used vendors.
Effendi is available from $10.20, new paperback edition.
Felaheen is available new and used from $8.99
He had me from “hello”
I like James Lee Burke so much that when his newest book came out – Pegasus Descending – I went ahead and pre-ordered it in hardcover. We usually wait for books to come out in paperback; they don’t hurt so much when you accidentally fall asleep and the book falls on your face. 😉
My first James Lee Burke mystery was A Morning for Flamingos. Here is the opening paragraph:
“We parked the car in front of the parish jail and listened to the rain beat on the roof. The sky was black, the windows fogged with humidity, and white veins of lightening pulsated in the bank of thunderheads out on the Gulf.
‘Tante Lemon’s going to be waiting for you,’ Lester Benoit, the driver, said. He was, like me, a plainclothes detective with the sheriff’s department. He wore sideburns and a mustache, and had his hair curled and styled in Lafayette. Each year he arranged to take his vacation during the winter in Miami BEach so that he would have a year-round tan, and each year he bought whatever clothes people were wearing there. Even though he had spent his whole life in New Iberia, except for time in the service, he always looked as if he had just stepped off a plane from somewhere else.”
Holy Smokes! He had me from”hello!” This beautiful prose in a detective series?
The main character in the New Iberia (Louisiana) series is Dave Robicheaux, a deeply flawed sometimes-detective. A former drunk, he follows the 12 step programs, attends meetings, and introduces us to the complexities of crime and detective work in the arcane society of deep-South Louisiana. Occasionally, he will fall off the wagon, and you can feel it happening with anticipation and dread. You can hear the seductive siren of Jim Beam calling to him in his weakest moments. I’ve never been a drunk, and I’ve never lived in Louisiana, but thanks to James Lee Burke, I feel like I have. He puts us inside the skin of Dave Robicheaux, for better or worse.
He also takes us inside the social issues – race relations, big oil, organized crime, organized gambling, and all the other issues of louche Louisiana. Burke’s most deeply held convictions come through shining clearly – that crime not only damages the innocent, but damages those who choose the criminal track. His greatest scorn is for those who commit the crimes, and then crave social respectability.
Burke’s books are not only intensely visual, they are deeply sensual – you hear the sounds of the crickets, you taste the crawdads at the celebration on the village green, you suffer the beatings, and your skin crawls when you meet some of the nastiest-every day villains you will ever meet. They all seem to swarm to New Orleans and New Iberia.
This is from Pegasus Decending:
“It was hot and breathless outside, and the sound of dry thunder, like crackling cellophane, leaked from clouds that gave no rain. Through the back window I could see vapor lamps burning in City Park and a layer of dust floating on the bayou’s surface. I could see the shadows of the oaks moving in my yard when the wind puffed through the canopy. I could see beads of humidity, as bright as quicksilver, slipping down the giant serrated leaves of the philodendron, and the humped shape of a gator lumbering crookedly across the mudband, suddenly plunging nto water and disappearing inside the lily pads. I saw all these things just as I heard helicopter blades soaring by overhead, and for just a second, I saw Dallas Klein getting to his knees on a hot street swirling with yellow dust in Opa-Locka, Florida, just like a man preparing himself for his own decapitation.”
Wow. Doesn’t that just take your breath away?
James Lee Burke has won an astonishingly rare two Edgar Awards – Best Mystery of the year. His heros are gritty, there is violence and bloodshed – these are not feel-good stories. And yet, in small moments, there is redemption. His hero is both self-destructive and takes good care of his wild housecat, Snuggs, and his three legged racoon, Tripod. In this book he is on his third wife – I wonder if he kills off his current wife when the author is angry with his real-life wife? He wouldn’t be the first author to take his ire out on his characters!
If you like a good, can’t-put-it-down read, if you can handle the brutality of police work, and if you like a book that transports you to a new culture and new location and makes you feel like you have lived there, then James Lee Burke will delight you. I am so addicted, that I pre-order his books when I know a new one is coming out. He is that good.
Dave Robicheaux Novels:
The Neon Rain
Heaven’s Prisoners
Black Cherry Blues
A Morning for Flamingos
A stained White Radiance
In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead
Dixie City Jam
Burning Angel
Cadillac Jukebox
Sunset Limited
Purple Cane Road
Jolie Blon’s Bounce
Last Car to the Elysian Fields
Crusader’s Cross
Pegasus Descending
Billy Bob Holland Novels (Montana deeply flawed, former alcoholic detective a lot like Dave Robicheaux)
Cimmarron Rose
Heartwood
Bitterroot
In the Moon of Red Ponies
Other Fiction:
Half of Paradise
To the Bright and Shining Sun
Lay Down my Sword and Shield
Two for Texas
The Convict
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
White Doves at Morning
James Lee Burke(R) in New Iberia
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