Venetian police commissioner Guido Brunetti and Inspector Vianello investigate the identity of a man found in a canal, his body damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, and the reason why someone wanted him dead.

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...

The New York Times -bestselling series continues with the murder of an American soldier in Venice: "This is definitely an author to watch ( Kirkus Reviews ). Early one morning, Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice police confronts a grisly sight when the body of a young man is fished out of a fetid canal. All clues point to a violent mugging, but for Brunetti the motive of robbery seems altogether too convenient. When something discovered in the...

Brunetti struggles to find a connection between the death of a powerful attorney, who was supposedly murdered during an attempted robbery, and the alleged suicide of an accountant.

"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...

At the request of his wife, Commissario Brunetti looks into the death of deaf, mentally disabled man who worked at their dry-cleaners and uncovers a mystery when the man left no official records and his mother is reluctant to speak to him.

Commisario Guido Brunetti works multiple cases in the middle of a Venetian summer--one involves the elderly aunt of a close associate and her dealings with a possibly fraudulent astrologer, and another involves a corrupt judge who delays trials for the right price.

"Donna Leon's bestselling mystery novels have won a multitude of fans for their insider's portrayal of Venice. From family meals to vaporetti rides, the details and rhythms of everyday life are an integral part of this beloved series. But so are the never-ending influx of tourists and the suffocating corruption. Through it all, Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti, a good man who loves his family and his city, has been an enduring figure, but in Earthly...

"In his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. Now, in Transient Desires, the thirtieth novel in Donna Leon's masterful series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident,...

An accident involving the father of a boy suspected of doing drugs finds Commissario Guido Brunetti pursuing a series of false and contradictory leads before uncovering a long-standing scam and unleashing unintentional consequences.