The Girl of His Dreams (Guido Brunetti Series #17) » (Unabridged)

Internationally bestselling mystery writer Donna Leon masterfully blends the intrigue and passion of the ancient city of Venice (also her beloved adopted home) with cutting-edge detective work in her popular series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti.

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 Barnes & Noble Review

Nothing wears thinner faster than a crime series. Given that fact, Donna Leon s 17th Commissario Brunetti mystery should be her weakest, for we know Leon s Venice so well by now and we know Brunetti, his family, and his colleagues so intimately. Instead, The Girl of His Dreams is one of Leon s best: a cunning, deceptively simple novel that exposes a modern nether world within her dreamy city. Brunetti s introduction to that world is the body of a dead child floating in a canal. "Silk. It felt like silk. He latched his fingers around the strands and pulled gently . As he backed up one step it floated closer, and the silk spread out and wrapped itself around his wrist." The girl was 11 years old, the daughter of a Gypsy or Rom family. Pathology reports reveal the presence of a sexually transmitted disease. "When he read the age of the dead child, Brunetti lowered the papers to the desk and turned his head to gaze out the window . A pine tree stood at the far corner, some sort of a fruit tree a few metres in front of it, so Brunetti saw the sweet green of the still unfolded leaves outlined against the darker green of the needles."

The girl s story comes to the fore halfway through a novel that opens with the funeral of Brunetti s mother, wonderfully rendered, and that also includes Brunetti s investigation of a new Christian sect. Familiar themes recur (the power of corrupt politicians, of the Catholic Church, of the faded aristocracy), and familiar characters -- such as Brunetti s pompous superior, his loyal subordinate, his omnipotent secretary, and his enduringly perceptive wife -- act predictably. Brunetti, however, has become more permeable and more interesting, as has Leon s supremely entertaining -- and thoughtful -- fiction. --Anna Mundow