NCW Libraries

"When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. "They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no," Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him, Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni...

The New York Times bestseller: “Venice shines through the pages of this novel. . . . Coupled with unexpected twists and turns [it] doesn’t disappoint” (Tulsa Book Review).
 
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller • A Library Journal Mystery Bestseller • A Booklist Best Crime Novel of the Year • A Crime...

An investigation into the vicious murder of a transvestite takes Venice Police Commissario Guido Brunetti on a trail that leads him into a confrontation with the highest levels of the financial world, the Italian government, and the Church.

For Commissario Guido Brunetti it begins with an early morning phone call. A sudden act of vandalism has just been committed in the chill Venetian dawn. But Brunetti soon discovers that the perpetrator is no petty criminal, for the culprit at the scene is none other than Paola Brunetti, his wife.

One cold and rainy morning, the body of a gypsy is found floating in a canal. Brunetti suspects she fell off a nearby roof while fleeing an apartment she had robbed--but something about the case continues to haunt him.

After a wealthy elderly woman is found brutally murdered in her Venetian apartment, the police suspect her maid, who has disappeared and is heading for her native Romania. But when it becomes clear the maid could not have had time to kill the old woman before catching her train, Guido Brunetti decides-unofficially-to take on the case himself. As his wife reads about the seven deadly sins, Brunetti realizes that this is probably not a crime motivated...

One afternoon, Commissario Guido Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a round of questioning, the case seems clear: the culprit must be the man who requested the volumes, an American professor from a Kansas university. The only problem--the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, the American professor doesn't exist....

Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she's had to leave home to pursue her career. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Manchester, England. Manchester, however, is no Venice. When Caterina gets word of a position back home, she jumps at the opportunity. The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of a baroque composer have been discovered....

"What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It's a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in ... Brunetti is approached for a favor by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows casually, but her mother was good to Brunetti's mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately, and not as official police business. Foscarini's son-in-law, Enrico Fenzo, has alarmed his wife (her...

Under the stifling summer sun, Venice is flooded with tourism. Commissario Guido Brunetti is planning the perfect mountain vacation where he can catch up on his reading. However, before he can go, an old friend has him look into a court corruption case. As he probes deeper, Commissario Brunetti quickly becomes embroiled in a shocking murder case that is linked to his own investigation.