Doctored Evidence

Donna Leon

Dec 2007 · A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery Book 13 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

“A smart and stylish fast-paced case of intrigue and corruption” in the Venetian-set, New York Times–bestselling mystery series (Los Angeles Times).
 
After a wealthy elderly woman is found brutally murdered in her Venetian apartment, the police suspect her maid, who has disappeared and is heading for her native Romania. But when it becomes clear the maid could not have had time to kill the old woman before catching her train, Guido Brunetti decides—unofficially—to take on the case himself.
As his wife reads about the seven deadly sins, Brunetti realizes that this is probably not a crime motivated by greed—rather, the motive may have more to do with the temptations of lust. But perhaps Brunetti is following a false trail and thinking of the wrong sin altogether . . .

“The detective’s humane police work is disarming, and his ambles through the city are a delight; but it is this peculiar insistence on turning every case into a morality tale that gives Leon’s fiction its subtlety and substance and makes us follow Brunetti wherever we must—even into the sea.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Holds together as an elegant puzzle, as a character study and as a story of an officer’s need to reclaim truth in all its complexities from those who want to find easy answers to life’s, and death’s, perplexing mysteries.” —The Washington Post Book World
 
“A compelling and intricate series of events as convoluted and intricate as the canals of Venice itself . . . Another expert mystery.” —The Baltimore Sun

Ratings and reviews

Venice, law-enforcement, murder, murder-investigation, false-information, family-dynamics, friendship***** Set in a time shortly after the beginning use of the euro, this unusual mystery uses the Seven Deadly Sins as part of the investigative process. I always find it easy to slip into a Brunetti mystery after an absence and out of any order. The shifty characters become clear and the well-meaning rule benders (my kind of people) romp through the serious and the snarky. Unusual in it's beginning, diligence, and denouement. Of course I loved it! I admit that I really enjoy listening to narrator David Colacci, especially his Italian (or is it Venetian) pronunciations.

DDONNA LEON IS A MAGICAL WRITER. THROUGH HER EYES I HAVE LIVED IN VENICE.

About the author

Donna Leon was born on September 29, 1942 in Montclair, New Jersey. She taught English literature in England, Switzerland, Iran, China, Italy and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of a Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series. Friends in High Places, a novel from the series, won the Crime Writers Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction in 2000. German Television has produced 16 Commissario Brunetti mysteries for broadcast. She was a crime reviewer for the Sunday Times. She has written the libretto for a comic opera and has set up her own opera company, Il Complesso Barocco. Her titles Jewels of Pardise, The Golden Egg, By Its Cover, Falling in Love and The Waters of Eternal Youth made The New York Times Bestseller List.