Donna Leon

An investigation into the vicious murder of a transvestite takes Venice Police Commissario Guido Brunetti on a trail that leads him into a confrontation with the highest levels of the financial world, the Italian government, and the Church.

When an immigrant dies on a Venice street, it will take a determined detective to pursue the case to its shocking end: “[An] outstanding series.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
 
On a cold Venetian night shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses to the event are the tourists who had been browsing the man’s wares...

In this “powerful” novel in the New York Times–bestselling series, an Italian police detective delves into two deaths and a dark era of history (The Times, London).
 
When Commissario Guido Brunetti first meets her, Claudia Leonardo is merely one of his wife’s students. Intelligent and serious, she asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather....

An unassuming uninhabited farmhouse in the Italian countryside delivers up its gruesome secret when its overgrown grounds are cleared for the first time in decades. What is left of the decomposing body is of little help to the urgently summoned Brunetti...until a distinctively valuable signet ring, found nearby, links the mangled remains to a kidnapped scion of Venetian aristocracy.

A wall of silence surrounds a cadet’s death at an elite military academy: “Superb . . . This is an outstanding book.” —Publishers Weekly
 
Detective Commissario Guido Brunetti has been called to investigate a parent’s worst nightmare. A young cadet has been found hanged, a presumed suicide, in Venice’s elite military academy.
 
Brunetti’s sorrow...

An Italian police detective looks into the deaths of two fishermen in an isolated island community: “Leon’s Venetian mysteries never disappoint.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
On a beautiful spring morning on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, a small boat moored at the docks suddenly explodes, killing two local clam fishermen. When it becomes clear that the...

"In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. From a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon has long been open to adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English...