Transient Desires: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
In the landmark thirtieth installment of the bestselling series the New Yorker has called "an unusually potent cocktail of atmosphere and event," Guido Brunetti is forced to confront an unimaginable crime.
In his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. Now, in Transient Desires, the thirtieth novel in Donna Leon's masterful series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joy riding in the Laguna with two young Italians. However, Brunetti's curiosity is aroused by the behavior of the young men, who abandoned the victims after taking them to the hospital. If the injuries were the result of an accident, why did they want to avoid association with it?
As Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, investigate the incident, they discover that one of the young men works for a man rumored to be involved in more sinister nighttime activities in the Laguna. To get to the bottom of what proves to be a gut-wrenching case, Brunetti needs to enlist the help of both the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Costiera. Determining how much trust he and Griffoni can put in these unfamiliar colleagues adds to the difficulty of solving a peculiarly horrible crime whose perpetrators are technologically brilliant and ruthlessly organized.
Donna Leon's Transient Desires is as powerful as any novel she has written, testing Brunetti to his limits and forcing him to listen very carefully for the truth.
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Donna Leon, born in New Jersey in 1942, has worked as a travel guide in Rome and as a copywriter in London. She taught literature in universities in Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia. Commissario Brunetti made her books world-famous. Donna Leon lived in Italy for many years, and although she now lives in Switzerland, she often visits Venice.
Named a Most Anticipated Book by Crime Reads
"Why would two young men dump two injured American girls outside a hospital in the middle of the night and then disappear? This is the question facing Commissario Guido Brunetti in a tricky case that requires the help of the Carabinieri and the Guardia Costiera to solve. What the Venetian detective and his colleagues eventually discover is genuinely horrific. The climax is nothing less than a trip--across the laguna--into the heart of darkness . . . Leon's special skill is to splice glimpses of la dolce vita with acute analysis of moral and ethical dilemmas . . . The series that has shadowed Brunetti for three decades is an epic achievement--in its own way quite the equal of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time."--Mark Sanderson, Times (UK)
"Leon's devoted audience may be shocked to realize that this latest Guido Brunetti novel is the thirtieth in the series, which only goes to show that sometimes abiding relationships never lose the shock of the new . . . Leon's beloved series shows no signs of aging."--Booklist (starred review)
"Atmospheric . . . The action builds to a thrilling denouement involving coast guard boats and navy commandos."--Publishers Weekly
Praise for Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries:
"This endlessly enjoyable series, with its deep thoughts about justice and vengeance and charming classical allusions, can't help making you smile."--Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"[Leon] has never become perfunctory, never failed to give us vivid portraits of people and of Venice, never lost her fine, disillusioned indignation."--Ursula K. LeGuin, New York Times
"You become so wrapped up in these compelling characters . . . Each one is better than the last."--Louise Erdrich, PBS NewsHour
"Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive, and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon . . . One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever."--Washington Post
"The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti, with his love of food and his loving family, proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities."--Wall Street Journal
"[Leon] uses the relatively small and crime-free canvas of Venice for rips about Italian life, sexual styles and--best of all--the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface."--Chicago Tribune
"Hers is an unusually potent cocktail of atmosphere and event."--New Yorker
"For those who know Venice, or want to, Brunetti is a well-versed escort to the nooks, crannies, moods, and idiosyncrasies of what residents call La Serenissima, the Serene One . . . Richly atmospheric, [Leon] introduces you to the Venice insiders know."--USA Today
"Donna Leon is the undisputed crime fiction queen . . . Leon's ability to capture the social scene and internal politics [of Venice] is first-rate."--Baltimore Sun
"Terrific at providing, through its weary but engaging protagonist, a strong sense of the moral quandaries inherent in Italian society and culture."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Brunetti is one of the most attractive policemen in crime fiction today."--Philadelphia Inquirer
"As always, Brunetti is highly attuned to (and sympathetic toward) the failings of the humans around him."--Seattle Times
"Leon's writing trembles with true feeling."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Leon started out with offhand, elegant excellence, and has simply kept it up."--Guardian
"Compassionate yet incorruptible, Brunetti knows that true justice doesn't always end in an arrest or a trial."--Publishers Weekly
"[Brunetti] is a superb police detective--calm, deliberate, and insightful as he investigates with a reflective thoroughness."--Library Journal
"The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon's long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an Everyman . . . [his life is] not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life."--Booklist
"It's difficult to describe the work of Donna Leon other than in superlatives . . . An annual blessing, a fine series--one of the finest (see what I mean) in the mystery (or any) genre . . . There are few reading joys that equal cracking the binding of a new Leon novel . . . If you have not experienced this world, so exotic and yet so familiar, you can pick up literally any volume in the series and begin a comfortable entry into Brunetti's Venice."--BookReporter
"One of the most popular crime series worldwide . . . While the Brunetti books, with their abundance of local color and gastronomic treats, appeal to the fans of the traditional mystery, Leon has something darker and deeper in mind."--Life Sentence
"No author has delved into Venetian society quite like Leon, whose insider's view shows how crime seeps throughout the city, touching all strata of society."--Mystery Scene
