Earthly remains / Donna Leon.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Donna Leon's bestselling mystery novels set in Venice have won a multitude of fans for their insider's portrayal of La Serenissima. From family meals to coffee bars, and from vaporetti rides to the homes and apartments of Venetians, the details and rhythms of everyday life are an integral part of this beloved series. But so are the suffocating corruption, the never-ending influx of tourists, and crimes big and small. Through it all, Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti has been an enduring figure. A good man who loves his family and his city, Brunetti is relentless in his pursuit of truth and some measure of justice.

In Earthly Remains , the twenty-sixth novel in this series, Brunetti's endurance is tested more than ever before. During an interrogation of an entitled, arrogant man suspected of giving drugs to a young girl who then died, Brunetti acts rashly, doing something he will quickly come to regret. In the fallout, he realizes that he needs a break, needs to get away from the stifling problems of his work.

When Brunetti is granted leave from the Questura, his wife, Paola, suggests he stay at the villa of a relative on Sant'Erasmo, one of the largest islands in the laguna . There he intends to pass his days rowing, and his nights reading Pliny's Natural History . The recuperative stay goes according to plan until Davide Casati, the caretaker of the house on Sant'Erasmo, goes missing following a sudden storm. Now, Brunetti feels compelled to investigate, to set aside his leave of absence and understand what happened to the man who had become his friend.

Earthly Remains is quintessential Donna Leon, a powerful addition to this celebrated series.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Brunetti hurried after Casati, who was walking towards a rope tied to one of the stanchions. As he reached him, Brunetti looked into the water and saw floating a meter below them an unpainted puparin, the wood glowing in the sun. Closest kin to the gondola, though a bit shorter, the puparin was Brunetti's favorite rowing boat, responsive and light in the water; he had never seen a lovelier one than this. Even the cross board glowed in the light, almost as though Casati had given it a quick polish before he left the boat. Casati set the suitcase on the riva and crouched down at the edge. For a moment, Brunetti thought he was going to jump down into the boat, as if a young man's stunt would show Brunetti who was the real boatman. Instead, Casati sat on the riva, put one hand, palm flat, on the pavement and hopped down into the boat. He steadied himself before reaching up towards the suitcase. Brunetti moved fast and handed it to him, sat on the riva, judged the distance, and stepped down onto the horizontal board that spanned the boat. Involuntarily, it escaped Brunetti, "My God, she's beautiful." He couldn't stop his right hand from running along the top board that ran along the side, delighting in its cool smoothness. Looking back at Casati, he asked, "Who built her?" "I did," he answered. "But that was a long time ago." Brunetti said nothing in reply, busy studying the lines where the boards were invisibly caulked together, the hull's gentle curve to the right, the floor planking that showed no sign of moisture or dirt. "Complimenti," Brunetti said, turning away to face forward. He heard noises from behind, then Casati asked him to haul in the rubber tire that served as a buffer between the side of the boat and the stone wall. When Brunetti turned again, he saw Casati pull in the second tire and set it on the bottom of the boat, next to a piece of iron grating standing upright against the side. Brunetti faced forward again and heard the slap of the mooring rope tossed to the bottom of the boat, and then the smooth noise of the oar slipping into the fórcola. A sudden motion pushed them away from the wall, and then he thought he heard Casati's oar slide into the water, and they were off. All he heard after that was the soft rubbing of the oar in the curve of the fórcola, the hiss of water along the sides of the boat, and the occasional squeak of one of Casati's shoes as his weight shifted forwards or backwards. Brunetti gave himself to motion, glad of the passing breeze that tempered the savagery of the heat. He hadn't thought to bring a hat, and he had scoffed at Paola's insistence that he bring sun screen." Brunetti had rowed since he was a boy, but he knew he had little to contribute to the smoothness of this passage. There was not the slightest suggestion of stop and go, of a point where the thrust of the oar changed force: it was a single forward motion, like a bird soaring on rising drafts of air, or a pair of skis descending a slope. It was a whish or a shuuh, as hard to describe as to hear, even in the midst of the silence of the laguna. Brunetti turned his head to one side, then to the other, but there was only the soft, low hiss. He wanted to turn and look at Casati, as though by watching him row, he might store the motions away and copy them later, but he didn't want to shift his weight and thus change the balance of the boat, however minimally. A fisherman stood on the riva, looking both bored and impatient. When he saw the puparin, he raised his pole in salutation to Casati, but the heat rendered him silent as a fish. They reached the end of the island and turned eastward, following the shoreline past houses and abandoned fields. Even the turning had been effortless. Brunetti watched houses and trees glide past and only then did he realize how fast they were moving. He turned, then, to watch Casati row. Seeing the perfect balance of his motion, back and forth, back and forth, hands effortlessly in control of the oar, Brunetti thought that no man his own age or younger would be able to row like this because he would spoil it by showing off. The drops from the blade hit the water almost invisibly before the oar dipped in and moved towards the back. His father had rowed like this. This was perfection, Brunetti realized, as beautiful as any painting he had ever seen or voice he had ever heard. Excerpted from Earthly Remains by Donna Leon All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This series entry begins at the Questura in a hilarious scene as Brunetti feigns a heart attack to save the ever faithful Pucetti from a major blunder. This "attack" earns him a leave that takes him to a different setting in a villa on Sant'Erasmo-a place of rest, reflection, and reading. Brunetti is tied to Venice in his conversations with Paola, as she is the only recurring character that has a significant role-favorites Signorina Elettra, -Griffoni, Vianello and Pucetti shine in cameo roles. Then David Casati, the caretaker, goes missing after a storm, and Brunetti feels compelled to investigate. Leon's subtle humor is in evidence as is her ability to create the most somber of scenes. This work is elegantly read by David Colacci, who lends the perfect atmosphere to a beautifully done mystery. VERDICT Leon remains at the top of her game, but those who have exhausted her repertoire may turn to the entertaining and reflective series of Andrea Camilleri, Martin Walker, Colin Cotterill, and Louise Penny. ["Longtime fans of this long-running series will find many of their favorite elements in this latest worthy entry: Venice architecture and food, rampant corruption, and a patient yet more world-weary Brunetti": LJ Xpress Reviews 3/3/17 review of the Atlantic hc.]-Sandra C. Clariday, Cleveland, TN © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Bestseller Leon's enticing 26th Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery (after 2016's The Waters of Eternal Youth) finds the Venetian policeman at headquarters one hot July day, questioning an arrogant lawyer accused of drugging a young woman he met at a party who subsequently died. When Brunetti has a heart seizure during this contentious interview, he winds up in the hospital. Prescribed complete rest, he later takes his wife's suggestion of staying at a villa on a sparsely inhabited island in the Venetian Lagoon. There he befriends Davide Casati, the villa's caretaker and a keeper of bees, some of which are mysteriously dying. Then, during a fierce storm, Davide disappears. Brunetti undertakes a search that leads to the discovery of his friend's body and boat. Was Davide's death an accident? He had been grief stricken since his wife's death, Brunetti learns, and recently remorseful over the demise of his beloved bees. Along the way to the poignant ending, Brunetti develops insights into nature and humankind's failure to protect it, as well as the nature of guilt and its role in a man's life. Agent: Susanna Bauknecht, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland). (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Yes, the soul-destroying demands of fighting for justice in a fundamentally unjust world have been taking their toll on Venetian police commissario Guido Brunetti, and, yes, an uncharacteristically rash action during an interrogation has earned him a two-week leave of absence, but, Guido, really, shouldn't you know that the heroes of crime-fiction series can't take vacations? The hellhounds of that unjust world are on your tail always, even when you retreat to a small island on the far end of the lagoon for some therapeutic rowing. It all starts perfectly, as Guido settles in at a lavish villa owned by his in-laws and spends his days rowing with the villa's caretaker, Davide, an enigmatic beekeeper with a troubled past. Then Davide disappears, and Guido is drawn into the search. Two of Leon's most powerful themes the all-pervasive corruption at the heart of Italian society and the environmental abuses that threaten Venice's water quickly bob to the surface. Soon Guido's feeling of sun-drenched calm is clouded over with the melancholic pallor that he had hoped to leave behind at the office. Leon's multifaceted portrait of a man overburdened with human tragedy emerges forcefully here, as the lagoon itself, beautiful on the surface but containing the seeds of its own destruction, stands as a gripping metaphor for the bad choices and intractable dilemmas that infect us all. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Leon has been living and writing in Venice for 30 years, and her novels, with their unparalleled evocation of landscape and sensitivity to character, have attracted an audience that encompasses fiction readers of all kinds.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Commissario Guido Brunetti, taking two weeks away from the Venetian Questura for complete rest and solitude, gets both more and less solitude than he bargained for and about the same amount of rest as when he's home.An impetuous inspiration about how to save a subordinate from embarrassment ends up sending Brunetti to the hospital, where he's diagnosed with high stress and urged to take some time off. His thoughtful wife, Paola, comes up with the perfect retreat: a villa her aunt owns on the nearby island of Sant'Erasmo. Packing four volumes of the classics, Brunetti (The Waters of Eternal Youth, 2016, etc.) prepares to soothe his soul by doing something physical by day and reading Pliny by night. The something physical he prescribes himself is rowing with Davide Casati, the villa's 70-something custodian, who, to Brunetti's delight, turns out to be an old friend of his father. But Casati is haunted by sadness over his dead wife, a mysterious ailment that's killing the bees he keeps and loves, and a secret he's not willing to confess even to his old friend's son. "Do you think some of the things we do can never be forgiven?" he asks Brunetti enigmatically, shortly before the Commissario finds him drowned beneath his overturned boat. It's an accident, of course, but Brunetti's keen judgment, which never takes a day off, is convinced that the timing of Casati's death is anything but coincidental and sets out to findnot the person who killed him (fans of this highly regarded series will know better than to expect much drama in this revelation) but the reason he died. Perhaps the most minimal of all Leon's mysteries, with no suspects to speak of and few details of the Commissario's domestic life or his eternal professional tussles at the Questura. Think of this barely-a-case as a vacation for your own soul. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

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.

(Bowker Author Biography)