The new novel from Donna Leon, the Sunday Times bestselling author of About Face
As Venice experiences a debilitating heatwave, Commissario Brunetti prepares to escape the city and spend time with his family in the mountains. For Ispettore Vianello, however, the weather is the last thing on his mind; it appears his aunt has become obsessed with horoscopes and has been withdrawing large amounts of money from the family business. Not knowing what to do, he consults Brunetti and asks permission to trail her.
Meanwhile, Brunetti receives a visit from a friend who works at the Commune. It seems that discrepancies have been occurring at the Courthouse involving Judge Luisa Coltellini and Araldo Fontana, an usher with a flawless track record. Intrigued, Brunetti asks Signorina Elletra to find out what she can while he is away on his family holiday.
But when news reaches Brunetti that Araldo Fontana has been murdered in a violent attack, he returns to the city to head up the investigation. Why would someone want a good man dead, and what might his death have to do with the discrepancies at the Courthouse?
About the Author
Donna Leon was named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers. She is an award-winning crime novelist, celebrated for the bestselling Brunetti series. Donna has lived in Venice for thirty years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Donna’s books have been translated into 35 languages and have been published around the world.
Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; including Friends in High Places, which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Fatal Remedies, Doctored Evidence, A Sea of Troubles and Beastly Things.
Industry Reviews
"Leon's books are a joy, and the 19th Venice-based Commissario Brunetti novel is well up to her consistently high standard"
Guardian
"To read a Donna Leon novel is to have an armchair holiday in her lovingly described Venice, in the company of an old friend - the amiable Commissario Brunetti . . . Leon never fails to impress with her carefully wrought plots and believable characters"
Daily Mail
"Knowingness, or an illusion of knowingness, is essential to successful crime-writing . . . Donna Leon has mastered this technique perfectly"
Jonathan Keates, TLS
"Donna Leon has established a special hold on the reader's imagination, so it is almost easier to imagine the Commissario returning to lunch with his feisty wife, just round the corner, than almost any other fiction character in the immortal (we hope) city. . . A Question of Belief is particularly enjoyable...Donna Leon's great skill is to invest the characters in her crime novels with a kind of humanity, even the wrongdoers. . . [a] marvellous evocation of the magic city, and its inhabitants of all types"
Antonia Fraser, The Lady
