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Title: The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery)
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Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
List Price: $24.00
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| The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press The Last Two Donna Leon Books | | After the shock of "Suffer The Little Children" which was totally inferior to the preceding excellent books, "The Girl of His Dreams" is an improvement. Not back to full form but acceptable. Hopefully Ms Leon has not lost her touch. | | The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press Pleasant and intelligent company. | I'm surprised at the people who are so vituperative about the Leon style. They should stick to American smart-aleck, spunky, violent mysteries, and leave the Italians to us. I read Leon for the pleasure of her company, and that of her policeman. I concur that Camilleri is also a terrific read (more "sprightly" and offhand than Leon), and the best of all is Magdalene Nabb.
If you don't know these writers, maybe you should peek at a few pages and see how it grabs you. | | The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press A girl of his dreams; A book to put you to sleep | Donna Leon likes to raise your political consciousness and usually succeeds. This time she lets us know that in Italy, anything is for sale; except the Venetian police - unless you are looking to get promoted. Frankly, this one is a deep yawn: we never care about the victim, even though the hero [protagonist if you are an English major] does; we don't care about the victims family; and frankly, we don't even care about the hero's enchanted family.
As a subplot, Donna Leon appears to believe that Venizia should only be for the Venetians. We touristas out never set foot there, and Venetians should stop selling out and living elsewhere. By tourists, she includes anyone not a native; even if you are Italiano. By our not going there and buying up the good apartments, Venice would then be affordable to the locals, and she and the other ex-patriots can return to San Marco Plaza untroubled by anything other which wine to savor and those pesky pigeons.
The anything is for sale in Venice\Italy is not a new theme for Leon, but this is the first time that she has applied it to the lowest classes; although this surely is not the first instance of this happening in "her" fair city.
Oh,yeah, the basic plot is unbelievable if not non-existent; the characters plastic and police work jejuene. and I'm a Donna Leon fan.
| | The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press Local Color . . And Little Else of Interest | Before writing my review, I waited two days after reading The Girl of His Dreams to see if I liked the book any better after sleeping on it. I didn't. Sorry, Ms. Leon. This one's a clunker. Why? Of two cases, only one is interesting. And the investigation of the interesting one isn't very stimulating. This book will only appeal to those who enjoy thinking about the injustices that victims experience.
As the book opens, crime seems to have taken a holiday in Venice and Commissario Guido Brunetti has plenty of time to investigate a mysterious preacher who is looking for big donations on the behalf of a priest he barely knows. Naturally, there's no crime to pin down, but Brunetti decides to look around anyway.
Before the preacher's background and motives can be understood, Brunetti has to deal with a most unpleasant duty . . . pulling a dead girl from the water. Here's where the local color comes in. The girl is a Gypsy (the P.C. term is Rom), part of a family that steals for a living. As you can imagine, Gypsies aren't interested in telling their troubles to the police.
How will Brunetti find out what happened to the girl? That's the real mystery of this book. A lot of the leads turn out to be misleading which provides a few mild surprises.
Once again, you'll learn that the police aren't able to do very much about crime, those in the establishment who complain often have things to hide, and the poor aren't as bad as everyone else thinks. The explication of those points is, however, not very interesting compared to other books in this series.
Did I need to read this book to remain a fan of this series? Not really. You have the option to pass on this one.
| | The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press Leon's literary march continues |
Donna Leon's 17th Commissario Brunetti book continues, well, Donna Leon. There's nothing new about this 17th episode, other than the crimes they're investigating, but Leon's fans don't necessarily want anything new. They're happy with this series just being Donna Leon: well written stories, great characterizations, excellent plot, and, of course, her penchant for socially significant issues, the least of which is not the corruptive practices of some elements of the Italian establishment (to put it kindly). As she told me last November, "My books aren't published in Italian!" Which is probably why she continues to enjoy living in Venice. In her books she looks scathingly at various facets of official Italian life and not kindly. That said, the other elements are like dazzling gems. And she does love her Venice.
Brunetti is a sensitive, honest policeman who never continues to be amazed at the "human condition." Crime after crime doesn't deter him, although he often calls into question some of society's "thinking." He does so with the support of his learned wife Paolo (who teaches English literature at a local university). This personal relationship is also one of the strong points in Leon's works.
In "Girl of his Dreams," a young girl is found drowned in one of the canals; on her person are two items of value, jewelry that lead not only to the owners but to the pursuit of what looks like murder. Here Brunetti faces the political and social concerns involving "non-Italian" residents (in this case Gypsies) and the discrimination and social injustices they not only suffer, but sometimes lead into. It also addresses the double standards of justice for the poor and the rich and well-placed. Where will the leads take Brunett , his Inspector Vianello, and his inimitable secretary Signorina Elettra?
At the same time, following the burial of his mother, Brunetti is visited by the administering priest, who reports that an "outside" minister seems to be involved in a money-scam and seeks Brunetti's help. This is in typical Leon fashion in having more than one story line progressing at the same time. With this series, the author does not merely pursue crime or confront a viable socially significant issue, but she provides us with continued insight into her well developed characters (Brunetti's family, his co-workers, and at various times other local citizens).
"Girl of his Dreams" moves along at a fast pace (a strong point in Leon's prose), but she never permits the pace to interfere with her objectives. Some readers have objected to her because Leon rarely provides a "Polly Anna" ending; instead, she chooses probably what is more of a realistic culmination. Occasionally, the real culprit may appear to go unpunished (although the crimes are always solved), due to bureaucratic snafus, legal fine-points, or just the fact that some problems perhaps aren't to be solved in this world. Leon, no doubt, prefers the realistic to the idealistic. Regardless, she's worth a read. This latest is no exception.
| | The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press Product Description | Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries have won legions of fans for their evocative portraits of Venetian life. In her novels, food, family, art, history, and local politics play as central a role as an unsolved crime. In The Girl of His Dreams when a friend of Brunetti’s brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work, calls with a request, Brunetti suspects the man’s motives. A new, American-style Protestant sect has begun to meet in the city, and it’s possible the priest is merely apprehensive of the competition. But the preacher could also be fleecing his growing flock, so Brunetti and Paola, along with Inspector Vianello and his wife, go undercover.
But the investigation has to be put aside when, one cold and rainy morning, a body is found floating in a canal. It is a child, a gypsy girl. Brunetti suspects she fell off a nearby roof while fleeing an apartment she had robbed. He has to inform the distrustful parents, encamped on the mainland, and soon finds himself haunted by the crime--and the girl. Thought-provoking, eye-opening, and profoundly moving, The Girl of His Dreams is classic Donna Leon, a spectacular, heart-wrenching addition to the series. | | The Girl of His Dreams (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery) by Atlantic Monthly Press Amazon.com | Amazon Best of the Month, May 2008: Reading The Girl of His Dreams leaves you no choice but to reconsider what makes a mystery novel so good. Certainly there's no denying the appeal of a hard-boiled crime story, where more often than not a brilliant yet battered P.I. drives you white-knuckled to the edge of your seat, but Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti--at once exactingly inquisitive and disarmingly sensitive--bucks that genre convention entirely. Here, in Leon's seventeenth Brunetti mystery, is a man who investigates the tragic drowning of a young Gypsy girl relentlessly, yet--in his thoughtful meanderings through the streets and cafes of Venice--also struggles to understand the human warps and weaknesses that make his beloved city so vulnerable. In the end, it's this pure love and curiosity for life (and, I admit, his lusty appreciation of daily luxuries like prosecco, good coffee, or a burst of sunshine) that make Brunetti such a seductive hero--so much so that you're willing to follow him wherever he goes. --Anne Bartholomew
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