Guido Brunetti Mysteries

I've been saving this distorted Grand Canal picture for a while (thank you, Google Maps) to accompany the recent list of Guido Brunetti mysteries that I've been reading.  Dave started reading them, getting in the mood for upcoming travels to Italy this fall, and I was jealous of all the fun he was having.  So even though I had a full plate of things to read, I jumped in.  Luckily they read quickly.  Quite a few people I know have read/are reading these: my sisters Susan and Cynthia, my brother-in-law Bruce, a quilter friend, and on Rick Steve's radio show this week, they were also mentioned.  As the woman said, "I may never travel to Venice, but by reading these, I feel like I have traveled there already."  Or something like that.

These little books are addicting.  I finish one, saying not another until I get the grading done, but after that, I find the next one on my nightstand (where Dave puts them after he finishes them) and dive into another.  I've been in Venice, these past few weeks, courtesy of Donna Leon.

Guido Brunetti is the Commissario of the Questura, the police department in Venice, and has two teenaged children and wife who teaches English Literature at the local university.  I can relate definitely to the wife-teaching-English-Lit part.

Here's what I've read, so far:

1. Death at La Fenice

2.  Death in a Strange Country

3.  Dressed for Death, also published in Britain as "The Anonymous Venetian."

4.  Death and Judgment, also published in Britain as "A Venetian Reckoning."

5.  Acqua Alta (one of my personal favorites)

6.  Quietly in Their Sleep, published in Britain as "The Death of Faith""

7.  A Noble Radiance

8.  Fatal Remedies

9.  Friends in High Places

10.  A Sea of Troubles

This last one is set on the neighboring island of Palestrina, and had me reading and flipping the pages at the end as fast as I could.

This summer I've also read (with my mother):

The Sense of an Ending: A Novel

Turn of Mind

The Buddha in the Attic

On Canaan’s Side: A Novel

The Shadow of the Wind

How It All Began 

 

I'm still thinking about On Canaan's Side, as well as Turn of Mind.