Description
Donna Leon has won heaps of critical praise and legions of fans for her best-selling mystery series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, one of contemporary crime fiction’s most beloved characters. Over twenty-one books this sharp, kind-hearted native Venetian has exposed readers to contemporary Venice in all its aspects: its arts and architecture, food and family life, but also its crime and insidious corruption. With The Jewels of Paradise,Leon takes readers beyond the world of the Venetian Questura in her first stand-alone novel.
Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career elsewhere, mostly abroad. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Birmingham, England, as a research fellow and assistant professor. Birmingham, however, is no Venice, so when she gets word of a position back home, Caterina jumps at the opportunity.
The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of a once-famous, now largely forgotten baroque composer, have been discovered. The composer was deeply connected in religious and political circles, but he died childless, and now two Venetian men, descendants of his cousins, each claim inheritance. With rumors of a treasure, they aren’t about to share the possible fortune. Caterina has been hired to attend the opening of the trunks and examine any enclosed papers to discover the “testamentary disposition” of the composer. But when her research takes her in unexpected directions and a silent man follows her through the streets, she begins to wonder just what secrets these trunks may hold. From a masterful writer, The Jewels of Paradise is a superb novel, a gripping tale of intrigue, music, history, and greed.
Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career elsewhere, mostly abroad. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Birmingham, England, as a research fellow and assistant professor. Birmingham, however, is no Venice, so when she gets word of a position back home, Caterina jumps at the opportunity.
The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of a once-famous, now largely forgotten baroque composer, have been discovered. The composer was deeply connected in religious and political circles, but he died childless, and now two Venetian men, descendants of his cousins, each claim inheritance. With rumors of a treasure, they aren’t about to share the possible fortune. Caterina has been hired to attend the opening of the trunks and examine any enclosed papers to discover the “testamentary disposition” of the composer. But when her research takes her in unexpected directions and a silent man follows her through the streets, she begins to wonder just what secrets these trunks may hold. From a masterful writer, The Jewels of Paradise is a superb novel, a gripping tale of intrigue, music, history, and greed.
Advance Praise
Praise for Donna Leon
"A splendid series . . . with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it." —The Sunday Telegraph (London)
"Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon, the expatriate American with the Venetian heart. . . . One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever." —Paul Skenazy, The Washington Post
"Donna Leon can paralyze the reader with joyful suspense." —The Mail on Sunday (London)
"The modest building on the Fondamenta San Lorenzo which houses the Questura is likely to become as much a tourist attraction as the Quai des Orfèvres." —Times Literary Supplement (London)
"Donna Leon is the ideal author for people who vaguely long for a `good mystery'. That Leon is also a brilliant writer should only add to the consistently comforting appeal of her Venetian procedurals featuring Commissario Guido Brunneti. Leon allows her warmhearted detective to take what solace he can from the beauty of his city and the homely domestic rituals that give him the strength to go on." —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"One of the best international crime writers . . . and her tales . . . set in Venice are at the apex of continental thrillers." —Peter Mergendahl,Rocky Mountain News
"Leon's gentle pace allows conversation and atmosphere to develop so full and founded that you can taste the coffee and smell the flowers. . . . You'll want to catch the first plane over there." —Phillipa Stockley, The Washington Post
"I struggle to think of other series authors who are as dependable as the excellent Leon." —Maxine Clarke, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Donna Leon depicts the characters, food, culture, and people of Venice with a knowing eye for `just the right' detail." —Jennifer McCord, Bookreporter.com
"Leon's writing trembles with true feeling." —Erin Hart, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Leon uses the relatively small and crime-free canvas of Venice for riffs about Italian life, sexual styles, and—best of all—the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface." —Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
"There's no denying that Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries_ Are well written in a manner that eliminates the extraneous without becoming showily stoic." —Charles Taylor,Bloomberg
"[Leon] has never become perfunctory, never failed to give us vivid portraits of people and of Venice, never lost her fine, disillusioned indignation." —Ursula K. LeGuin, The New York Times
"The most obvious appeal of Donna Leon's novels about Commissario Guido Brunetti is that they are so supremely civilized. For readers with a certain mindset—distaste for violence, love of Italy's cultural and sensual pleasures and scorn for officialdom—Leon's novels are always a pleasure." —Patrick Anderson, Washington Post
"[Leon] is terrific at providing, through [her] weary but engaging protagonist, a strong sense of the moral quandaries inherent in Italian society and culture." —Eddie Muller, San Francisco Chronicle
"For many years, Donna Leon has been writing thoughtful, perceptive mysteries" —Sam Coale, Providence Journal
"Donna Leon guides us through Venice like James Ellroy through Los Angeles or Manuel Vàzquez Montalbàn through Barcelona: with an eye used to detect what lies behind the façade." —Le Figaro (Paris)
"Sensitive, incredibly colourful social portraits, close-ups of a splintered, encrusted society. But finally it is probably Guido Brunetti who makes the novels so successful. The reader follows him with pleasure through the narrow, winding streets of Venice." —Der Spiegel (Hamburg)
"One gets addicted to Brunetti." —News (Vienna)
"Donna Leon is a top thriller writer, on a par with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell. Women, so it would seem from literary history, have always been in their element with the genre of murder and violence." —Sonntags Zeitung (Zurich)
"Commissario Brunetti's investigations place Donna Leon very high in the hierarchy of crime writing." —Le Figaro (Paris)
"Brilliantly evokes Venetian atmosphere. The characters of Brunetti and his family continue to deepen throughout this series." —The Times (London)
"Crime writing of the highest order: powerful, relevant and all too full of human failings." —The Guardian (Manchester)
"In Donna Leon's sure hands, the crime novel becomes an instrument for exploring social justice and universal truths about human behavior while beautifully telling a compelling story." —Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, Scottsdale, Arizona
"One of the best of the international crime writers is Donna Leon, and her Commissario Guido Brunetti tales set in Venice are at the apex of continental thrillers." —Jane Dickinson, Rocky Mountain News
"Donna Leon has a wonderful feel for the hidden evils that lie below the façade of the magical city, and Brunetti, sturdy family man and cynic, is an endearing guide into the machinations of Italian society." —Marcel Berlins, The Times (London) on Blood from a Stone
"No one knows the labyrinthine world of Venice or the way favoritism and corruption shape Italian life like Leon's Brunetti. Blood from a Stone [and] all thirteen other Brunettis are now in paperback for those who have not yet met the thoughtful Venetian cop with a love of food, an outspoken wife, and a computer-hacker secretary who plays man Friday to his detective." —Johanna McGreary, Time on One of 6 Detective Series to Savor
"The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon's long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an Everyman . . . [his life is] not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life." —Bill Ott, Booklist on Blood from a Stone
"A splendid series . . . with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it." —The Sunday Telegraph (London)
"Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon, the expatriate American with the Venetian heart. . . . One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever." —Paul Skenazy, The Washington Post
"Donna Leon can paralyze the reader with joyful suspense." —The Mail on Sunday (London)
"The modest building on the Fondamenta San Lorenzo which houses the Questura is likely to become as much a tourist attraction as the Quai des Orfèvres." —Times Literary Supplement (London)
"Donna Leon is the ideal author for people who vaguely long for a `good mystery'. That Leon is also a brilliant writer should only add to the consistently comforting appeal of her Venetian procedurals featuring Commissario Guido Brunneti. Leon allows her warmhearted detective to take what solace he can from the beauty of his city and the homely domestic rituals that give him the strength to go on." —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"One of the best international crime writers . . . and her tales . . . set in Venice are at the apex of continental thrillers." —Peter Mergendahl,Rocky Mountain News
"Leon's gentle pace allows conversation and atmosphere to develop so full and founded that you can taste the coffee and smell the flowers. . . . You'll want to catch the first plane over there." —Phillipa Stockley, The Washington Post
"I struggle to think of other series authors who are as dependable as the excellent Leon." —Maxine Clarke, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Donna Leon depicts the characters, food, culture, and people of Venice with a knowing eye for `just the right' detail." —Jennifer McCord, Bookreporter.com
"Leon's writing trembles with true feeling." —Erin Hart, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Leon uses the relatively small and crime-free canvas of Venice for riffs about Italian life, sexual styles, and—best of all—the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface." —Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
"There's no denying that Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries_ Are well written in a manner that eliminates the extraneous without becoming showily stoic." —Charles Taylor,Bloomberg
"[Leon] has never become perfunctory, never failed to give us vivid portraits of people and of Venice, never lost her fine, disillusioned indignation." —Ursula K. LeGuin, The New York Times
"The most obvious appeal of Donna Leon's novels about Commissario Guido Brunetti is that they are so supremely civilized. For readers with a certain mindset—distaste for violence, love of Italy's cultural and sensual pleasures and scorn for officialdom—Leon's novels are always a pleasure." —Patrick Anderson, Washington Post
"[Leon] is terrific at providing, through [her] weary but engaging protagonist, a strong sense of the moral quandaries inherent in Italian society and culture." —Eddie Muller, San Francisco Chronicle
"For many years, Donna Leon has been writing thoughtful, perceptive mysteries" —Sam Coale, Providence Journal
"Donna Leon guides us through Venice like James Ellroy through Los Angeles or Manuel Vàzquez Montalbàn through Barcelona: with an eye used to detect what lies behind the façade." —Le Figaro (Paris)
"Sensitive, incredibly colourful social portraits, close-ups of a splintered, encrusted society. But finally it is probably Guido Brunetti who makes the novels so successful. The reader follows him with pleasure through the narrow, winding streets of Venice." —Der Spiegel (Hamburg)
"One gets addicted to Brunetti." —News (Vienna)
"Donna Leon is a top thriller writer, on a par with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell. Women, so it would seem from literary history, have always been in their element with the genre of murder and violence." —Sonntags Zeitung (Zurich)
"Commissario Brunetti's investigations place Donna Leon very high in the hierarchy of crime writing." —Le Figaro (Paris)
"Brilliantly evokes Venetian atmosphere. The characters of Brunetti and his family continue to deepen throughout this series." —The Times (London)
"Crime writing of the highest order: powerful, relevant and all too full of human failings." —The Guardian (Manchester)
"In Donna Leon's sure hands, the crime novel becomes an instrument for exploring social justice and universal truths about human behavior while beautifully telling a compelling story." —Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, Scottsdale, Arizona
"One of the best of the international crime writers is Donna Leon, and her Commissario Guido Brunetti tales set in Venice are at the apex of continental thrillers." —Jane Dickinson, Rocky Mountain News
"Donna Leon has a wonderful feel for the hidden evils that lie below the façade of the magical city, and Brunetti, sturdy family man and cynic, is an endearing guide into the machinations of Italian society." —Marcel Berlins, The Times (London) on Blood from a Stone
"No one knows the labyrinthine world of Venice or the way favoritism and corruption shape Italian life like Leon's Brunetti. Blood from a Stone [and] all thirteen other Brunettis are now in paperback for those who have not yet met the thoughtful Venetian cop with a love of food, an outspoken wife, and a computer-hacker secretary who plays man Friday to his detective." —Johanna McGreary, Time on One of 6 Detective Series to Savor
"The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon's long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an Everyman . . . [his life is] not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life." —Bill Ott, Booklist on Blood from a Stone
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780802120649 |
| PRICE | $25.00 (USD) |
Available on NetGalley
| (PDF) |
| (PDF) |
