So Shall You Reap – Leonová Donna (2023)

On a cold November evening, Commissario Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from Ispettore Vianello reports that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Since no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti must rely on the city’s richer informal sources of information: gossip and the memories of those who knew the victim. The man had been living in a garden house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, where Brunetti discovers books pointing to his interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers and the Italian political terrorists active in the 1980s. As Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni and Signorina Elettra piece together apparently unrelated information about property, land use, books and university friendships, Brunetti encounters something that takes him back to his student days and prompts reflections on lost ideals, youthful mistakes, Italian politics and history, and the accidents that can lead to revelation. So Shall You Reap is a witty and thoughtful instalment in Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti series.