With So Shall You Reap we celebrate 30 years of strolling the magical streets of Venice with Inspector Guido Brunetti. Leon’s first book, Death at La Fenice, was published in 1992, and if you have been lucky enough, you have read the 31 preceding Brunetti mysteries which came before this latest, to be published March 14th. With this novel, Leon once again tackles one of her favorite topics — immigration — when an undocumented Sri Lankan man is found dead in a canal.
To say that the actual whodunit is really of no consequence in a Leon book is obvious once again here. But of course, we do not read about Brunetti, his wife Paolo and his family to enjoy a mystery puzzle. Instead, we read Leon to experience that magical stroll around Venice with a good man and contemplate current issues of the day as the simple mystery unfolds around us.
Leon takes on classism in So Shall You Reap as well as the refugee issue, which currently is a major concern in Italy. And as Leon herself is now 80 years old, her Brunetti reflects back on the politics of the 1980’s in Italy. Students like Brunetti, and like many of us in the US in the 70’s and 80’s, fought against the greed of capitalism, the power of corporations and injustice of government. We were determined and arrogant enough to believe we could fix it all, but as with Brunetti looking back to that time in his current case, are any of us really able to note any progress? And how do we look at that greed, power and injustice now with an older lens?
I could read Leon over and over and never tire of Brunetti and his entire family — how I would love to sit down and enjoy a dinner at their home in Venice. My daughter and her friend, who recently discovered Donna Leon, are reading all 32 of the Brunetti mysteries from the beginning. What a delightful discovery! How I envy them. I am not sure how many more Brunetti books there will be given Leon’s age, but I will treasure each one as they come out as much as I did the first and all the other books since then. 5 of 5 stars.
This ARC title was Netgalley.com at no cost, and I am providing an unbiased review. So Shall You Reap will be published March 14, 2023.
Pam Did It 