Writers Who Kill

Donna Leon’s portrayal of Venice

By Margaret S. Hamilton

Before I visit a new place, I read a work of crime fiction about it--P.D. James on London, Cara Black on Paris, and this fall, Donna Leon on Venice.

Leon is an American who has taught English abroad since the seventies. Over the past twenty-five years, she has published twenty-six Commissario Brunetti novels set in Venice.

Brunetti is an appealing and empathetic police detective, more interested in conducting interviews concerning a crime than climbing the bureaucratic ladder at the Questura. Passionate about uncovering the truth, his vision of justice is more pragmatic. Brunetti is a Venetian, born and bred, as are his university-professor wife and two teenage children. They have no wish to live elsewhere.

As in the works of James and Black, Venice assumes the role of a major character in Leon’s books. Venice is a maze of narrow streets, alleys, and canals, overrun most of the year with hordes of tourists. Street crime exists, particularly pickpockets, but, in general, Venice is a safe city. Except for the murders Brunetti investigates. Bodies are everywhere, the murder committed off-stage before he and Inspector Vianello are summoned. Crimes of passion, corruption, and greed affect every stratum of Venetian society.

Brunetti navigates the city on foot or takes the vaporetto water bus on the Grand Canal. Occasionally, he’ll use a police launch. He has a sidearm, but he rarely remembers to carry it. Brunetti has an instinctive knowledge of Venice, knowing with certainly which of ten streets intersecting a large square will lead him to his destination. Venice addresses aren’t sequentially numbered. Brunetti uses landmarks (the house with green shutters to the left of the church) instead.

Leon describes Brunetti’s daily life: his lunches and dinners at home with his wife and children, his meetings at a local coffee bar, when the garbage is collected at his front door (in the early morning, on a two-wheeled collection cart). Venice recycles. Parents escort their children to and from school. Dog-owners walk their dogs on the narrow streets. Muzzled dogs are allowed on the vaporetti. Food and rent are hideously expensive, the population in a steady decline.

In Earthly Remains, her latest book, Leon delves into eco-detective fiction. Venice is sinking—the acqua alta, high water, regularly floods the city in the fall and winter. The long-term MOSE tidal barrier project is a construction disaster rife with corruption. And in her book, something is killing the bees in hives on the islands in the lagoon:

He’d stopped rowing then, and Brunetti’d pulled up his own oar and turned to look at the older man. “Look at that,” Casati had said, pointing his chin to the left, and when that failed to encompass his meaning, he’d waved his left hand in a wide arc towards the mainland. “Everywhere, we’ve built and dug and torn up and done what we wanted with nature. And look at this,” he’d said, turning to his right and waving out over the laguna, “we’ve poisoned this, too…They’ve done what they wanted with nature, and our children will pay the price.” Immediately, Brunetti had thought of the MOSE, the tidal barrier that many people believed could not work, and realized that Casati’s prophecy included Brunetti’s own children. “We’ve poisoned it all, killed it all,” Casati had said, turning back to Brunetti. (Earthly Remains, p.157)

When my husband and I were in Venice, we found it a challenge navigating the narrow streets in the pouring-down rain. Donna Leon describes how the Venetians handle it:

There were few people on the streets, so he was spared the usual jostle and umbrella-sparring as people tried to pass in the narrow calli. Venetians had had ages to develop the technique of tilting the top to the side of the calle and slipping along the walls past the oncoming walker. Tourists had two techniques: either they forged ahead in the face of all human obstacles or they stopped and cowered with their backs against the nearest building, the umbrella extended fully open above them, effectively forcing all traffic into the centre of the street. (The Waters of Eternal Youth, p.247-8)

During our visit, we had seen posters advertising a Vivaldi concert in a church. One day, when we were lost looking for the Accademia Gallery, we passed the church where the concert would be performed. We purchased tickets, asked about a nearby restaurant for dinner, and were given a large- scale paper map showing the route to the church from San Marco.

After the concert, we stood on the Accademia Bridge watching the vaporetti and water taxis rumble up and down the Grand Canal, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” reverberating in our heads. Venice, La Serenissima, is a magical place that must be protected and preserved.

Readers and writers, do you enjoy learning about a new place by reading a novel (in particular, work of crime fiction), before your visit?