Book Report: Acqua Alta

60. Donna Leon, Acqua Alta (2009) (11/25/21)

This is the fifth book in Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series (my review of the fourth is here). Here's what I wrote on Goodreads about Acqua Alta: "What I most enjoy about the Commissario Brunetti books are the details—of daily life in the streets of Venice, of familial upsets and resolutions, of Italian petty corruption, of the pleasure of a late-winter hot toddy in a canal-side bar. As usual, the mystery here was almost beside the point, but it gave the book something to do."

The plot involves stolen artistic treasures from China. We meet again a couple of characters from the first book in the series, the opera singer Flavia Petrelli and her American art historian lover Brett Lynch. The book's title refers to the annual flooding of Venice, which gets various characters wet and cold. There are a couple of deaths. The bad guys get their just deserts—I think. (This being corrupt Italy, it's not always easy to tell.)

I did dog-ear a page, and if I remember to tomorrow, I'll quote that passage. For now, though, here's book #60 in the bag.