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Title details for About Face by Donna Leon - Wait list

About Face

#18 in series

by Donna Leon
David Colacci
Audiobook
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Wait time: About 2 weeks
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0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Commissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He's charmed - perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola - by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance.
A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from the nearby city of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants information about the owner of a trucking company who was found murdered in his office. He believes the man's death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse - and more sinister material - in his company's trucks. No stranger to mutual suspicion and competition between rival Italian police departments, Brunetti is nevertheless puzzled by the younger man's paranoid behaviour.
Eventually Guarino agrees to email a photo of his suspect, but by the time the photograph arrives, he himself is dead. Was he killed because he got too close? And why is it that Franca Marinello has often been seen in company of the suspect, a vulgar man with Mafia connections and a violent past?
Donna Leon's new novel is as subtle, gripping and topical as ever, bringing the sights, sounds and smells of Venice flooding to life.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 20, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781448115594
      • File size: 279423 KB
      • Duration: 09:42:07

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 23, 2009
      The 18th installment of Leon's wickedly entertaining series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti (after 2008's The Girl of His Dreams
      ) focuses on garbage, illuminating the author's ongoing concern about the environment. Venice contends with polluted canals and a huge chemical complex. Trash litters Naples' streets. Incinerators in south Italy are full, and trucks laden with toxic waste travel the roads. Brunetti becomes an ecological expert when an investigator with the carabiniere wants him to look into illegal hauling that has resulted in a truck driver's murder. On a personal level, Brunetti's father-in-law asks him to investigate a potential business partner, Maurizio Cataldo. But Brunetti, who's devoted to his wife and children, is more intrigued by Cataldo's much younger second wife, whose once beautiful looks were ruined by a face lift. Leon flawlessly melds the two plot threads as she parallels her characters' vulnerability with that of Venice. 7-city author tour.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 27, 2009
      In Leon's 18th novel, Commissario Brunetti delves deeply into Venice's (literal and figurative) pollution, navigating the choked canals as he tries to solve the murder of a truck driver. When his father-in-law asks him to look into the background of a potential business partner, Brunetti becomes fascinated with the business partner's wife—a former beauty now ravaged by a ruinous face lift. If the story evolves slowly, David Colacci manages to keep listeners hooked. His deep and direct voice drives the narrative, and his seamless transitions from description to dialogue are particularly impressive given the book's range of accents, genders and vocal styles. Despite the strong projection of his voice, Colacci can still shift his tone with his vocal characters to convey two people talking in confidence. His interpretation of Leon's book proves an excellent example of how a narrator can improve the actual story. An Atlantic Monthly hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 23).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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