Donna Leon: Trace Elements (USA 2021)

From the Publisher:
When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding.

"They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no," Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta's obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta's secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman's accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus's classic play The Eumenides.

As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements. A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery. Grove Paperback, ISBN: 9780802148681 (March, 2021), 288 p., $17.00.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements (UK 2020)

From the Publisher:
'They killed him. It was bad money.' A dying hospice patient gasps these cryptic words about her recently-deceased husband. Brunetti softly promises he will look into what appears to be a private family tragedy. He discovers that her husband worked for a company that monitored the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had died in a motorcycle accident.

Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta's obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti turns to the remarkable research skills of Patta's secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. With her help, Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the dying woman's accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements. The New Commissario Brunetti Mystery. Arrow, ISBN: 9781787465121 (September, 2020), 288 p., £8.99.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements (USA 2020)

From the Publisher:
When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding.

"They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no," Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta's obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta's secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman's accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus's classic play The Eumenides.

As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements. A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery. Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN: 9780802148674 (March, 2020), 278 p., $27.00, eBook $15.49.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements (UK 2020)

From the Publisher:
A woman's cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entire region in Donna Leon's haunting twenty-ninth Brunetti novel.

When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding.

'They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no', Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta's obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta's secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman's accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus's classic play The Eumenides.

As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Donna Leon: Trace Elements. The New Commissario Brunetti Mystery. William Heinemann, ISBN: 9781785152436 (March, 2020), 278 p., £20.00, eBook £9.99.