Doctored Evidence

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Donna Leon's riveting new novel, Doctored Evidence, follows Commissario Guido Brunetti down the winding streets of contemporary Venice as he throws open the doors of a case his superiors would rather leave closed. When a miserly spinster is found brutally murdered in her Venice apartment, police immediately suspect her Romanian housekeeper. They are certain their job is done after the immigrant dies while fleeing arrest, but weeks later; a neighbor comes forward to defend the innocence of the accused. The only investigator who believes the alibi is Brunetti, who will have to go behind the backs of his superiors to vindicate the Romanian and find her employer's actual killer. As always, the indispensable hacking skills of the ever-loyal Signorina Elettra are the perfect complement to Brunetti's meticulous detective work. She discovers mysterious deposits in the old woman's bank account, but who made them? As Brunetti investigates, his wife, at home, reads him teachings on the Seven Deadly Sins. In a modern world of intrigue and nebulous morality, how do they relate to the murder at hand? Doctored Evidence is charged with suspense and evokes a contemporary Venice with Donna Leon's masterful flair.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

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. — Marilyn Stasio

The Washington Post

No one is more graceful or accomplished than Leon at threading her detective's home life into and out of the course of an investigation. She delivers luscious descriptions of meals; supplies lively accounts of Brunetti's conversations with his wife, Paola, who is busy reading through some religious text on the seven deadly sins; and takes care to ensure that his children actually act like teenagers. Add the remarkable skills of Brunetti's aide Signorina Elettra, who uses her computer to penetrate the financial circumstances of everyone involved in the investigation, and you have a beautifully cadenced mystery. — Paul Skenazy

Publishers Weekly

While a bit too slow to rank among her best, Leon's 13th atmospheric Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery (after 2003's Uniform Justice) still offers many pleasures, including a clever puzzle. When greedy, curmudgeonly Maria Grazia Battestini is murdered, the Venetian police suspect her Romanian housekeeper, whom they shoot when she tries to evade questioning. The case seems closed until a neighbor returns from a trip, claiming the housekeeper's innocence. Hardworking, cynical Brunetti, devoted to his family, succulent meals and justice, an honest man in a corrupt police department, takes over the case. He finds that Battestini's several bank accounts were transferred out of Italy upon her death, the source of the money unknown. Brunetti suspects that her lawyer, Roberta Marieschi, and niece, Graziella Simionato, who shared power of attorney, were in cahoots and that the money came from blackmail. After several false leads and assiduous attention to detail, Brunetti discovers the key to the crime-pride, rather than greed, with the title a pun on the motive-meanwhile one-upping his workplace enemy, the ambitious, careless Lieutenant Scarpa. Leon evokes the real Venice, not the place of romantic novels or glitzy travel guides but the gritty, inbred city of dishonest politicians and hamlet-like neighborhoods filled with gossip. (Apr. 20) Forecast: Uniform Justice was the #1 Book Sense 76 title for September 2003. Aided by a four-city author tour and Penguin reissues of earlier Brunetti titles in paperback, this one will keep up the momentum for Leon, who has won the Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The crime at first seems an open-and-shut case: a Romanian housekeeper, accused of brutally murdering her miserly, elderly Venetian employer, is killed while fleeing the police. But when a neighbor steps forward to clear the housekeeper's name, Commissario Guido Brunetti seeks to find the real killer, especially when he learns that the original officer on the case is his enemy, the malevolent Lieutenant Scarpa. Like Leon's other elegant Venetian mysteries (Uniform Justice), the intricate plot here resembles the city's narrow and crooked calli, "often leading to dead ends or branches that [take] the unsuspecting in the opposite direction to the way they wanted to go." The pleasure for readers lies in accompanying Brunetti as he navigates these labyrinths of "rancours and animosities...and obstacles and wrong turns" in his scrupulous quest for justice. Along the way, readers are also treated to evocative portraits of Venice and its people and mouthwatering descriptions of its food. Fans will snap this up. Strongly recommended for most mystery collections.-Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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