Summer vacations are the perfect opportunity to dive into a mystery series. Nothing makes a long flight or train journey pass more quickly. Having exhausted some of my favorite novelists in the genre (Henning Mankell, Susan Hill, Nicci French, et al), and on the cusp of a trip to Europe, it seemed like the perfect time to make a start on a series that I have inexplicably overlooked until now – Donna Leon’s celebrated Brunetti novels. There are now more than 30 titles in the series, so I’m making no commitment to read them all at this point, but it seemed only right to start at the beginning, Death at La Fenice.

A celebrated conductor is found dead in his dressing room during an intermission at a performance at the famous Venice opera house. The cause of death is immediately clear, cyanide poisoning, but who killed the maestro, and why? Enter Commissario Guido Brunetti, the senior detective assigned to solve the puzzle. Flawed in many ways, Brunetti is a contrary, anti-establishment figure, a man who loves his family, Venice, and his work (probably in that order).

Death at La Fenice sets, I suspect, the tone of the entire Brunetti series. This is a long love letter to Venice and a prolonged character study of a passionate Venetian. The plot here is secondary and the denouement feels hurried. I have already bought numbers 2 and 3 in the series, so we’ll see if anything changes.