WELCOME
Welcome to Donna Leon Online
Welcome to Donna Leon Online. This is the official website for Donna Leon in the UK. We will keep you up-to-date with information on her new novels and news of her events.
Enjoy!
LATEST RELEASE
Handel’s Bestiary
When Donna Leon, the acclaimed author of the best-selling Commissario Guido Brunetti series, is not conjuring up tales of crime and corruption in Venice, she is listening to opera. Over the years, Leon has noticed that her favourite composer, George Frideric Handel, filled his operas with arias that make reference to animals; rich in symbolism, the perceived virtues and vices of the lion, bee, nightingale, snake, elephant, and tiger, among others, resonate in his works.
In Handel’s Bestiary, Leon draws on her love of Handel and her expertise in medieval bestiaries—illustrated collections of animal stories—to assemble a bestiary of her own. Twelve chapters trace twelve animals through history, mythology, and the arias. Each is joined by whimsical original illustrations by German painter Michael Sowa. The accompanying CD includes each aria, expertly recorded by Il Complesso Barocco with Alan Curtis conducting. Fascinating and utterly original, Handel’s Bestiary springs to life with Leon’s knowledge and wit.
OUT NOW
Drawing Conclusions
When a young woman returns from holiday to find her elderly neighbour dead, she immediately alerts the police. Commissario Brunetti is called to the scene but, though there are signs of a struggle, it seems the woman has simply suffered a fatal heart attack. Vice-Questore Patta is eager to dismiss the case as a death from natural causes, but Brunetti believes there is more to it than that. His suspicions are further aroused when the medical examiner finds faint bruising around the victim’s neck and shoulders, indicating that someone might have grabbed and shaken her. Could this have caused her heart attack? Was someone threatening her?
Conversations with the woman’s son, her upstairs neighbour, and the nun in charge of the old-age home where she volunteered, do little to satisfy Brunetti’s nagging curiosity. With the help of Inspector Vianello and the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, Brunetti is determined to get to the truth and find some measure of justice.