Earthly Remains by Donna Leon

First Sentence:  After an exchange of courtesies, the session had gone on for another half-hour, and Brunetti was beginning to feel the strain of it.

      

After acting rashly in order to save a young policeman, Brunetti takes some time off and goes away to an island villa owned by a wealthy relative. There he becomes reacquainted with Davide Casati with whom Brunetti spends his days rowing.  After a sudden, violent storm, Casati has gone missing.  A search is begun and Brunetti is there when Casati’s body is found.  But was it an accident?  It’s time for Brunetti to get back to work.

      

Even is one hasn’t read previous books in the series, one will acquire an immediate respect and affection for him, for his wife Paola, from the very opening.  It is lovely to have a protagonist with a solid home life who loves his wife—“ʿStay another weekʾ Paola said, laughing. …ʽWill I still recognize you?ʾ ʿIt would break my heart if you didn’t,’ he said, unaware until he said it how true it was.”

      

Leon is such an intelligent writer and one who assumes the same of her readers, which is lovely, or at least a desire by her readers to do research and learn.  Yet she also has a sense of humor—“He couldn’t jump up and pretend to be Lazarus…” …”He was just coming to the end of the fawning dedication to the Emperor Vespasian, embarrassed that a writer he so admired could be such a lickspittle…” 

      

A strong sense of place can so enhance a reader’s experience.  We see what Brunetti sees, hears, and smells.  And for anyone who has rowed a watercraft, one can almost feel the flow of water beneath the boat, and the rhythm of the oars.  One may also chuckle at the comparison—“Brunetti…untied the boat,…and bent again to his oar, wondering if this was what it was like to be a galley slave.  But slaves had no leather gloves and certainly did not stop for coffee in the afternoon.”

      

The story contains a very relevant and timely ecological focus on the condition of bees and the damage man hath wrought on our environment.  But there is also a small element of hope. Leon does make on think, and question, on several different levels and topics, including a sad commentary on the state of the economy in Venice.

      

Murders and their resolutions are often intended to be shocking.  So are the revelations here.  All the more so as it is based on the reality of what is happening in this country, and the world, today.

      

“Earthly Remains” is a story of awareness and choices; guilt and conscience, and the awareness of cause and effect; the consequences of one’s behavior.  But still, in the end, it is a mystery and a fine one.

 EARTHLY REMAINS (Pol Proc-Comm. Guido Brunetti-Venice-Contemp) – VG+

      Leon, Donna – 26^th in series

      Grove Atlantic – April 2017