Trace elements

Summary: A woman's cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entireregion in Donna Leon's haunting twenty-ninth Brunetti novelWhen Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wantsto speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague Claudia Griffoni waste no time in responding.'They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,' Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceasedhusband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him, Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni willlook into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collectingsamples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had diedin a mysterious motorcycle accident.Distracted briefly by Vice-Questore Patta's obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once moreby the remarkable research skills of Patta's secretary, Signorina Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, intime Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman's accusation and the threat it reveals to the healthof the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seekingsolace, he reads Aeschylus's classic play, The Eumenides.As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engagesour sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Other Formats and Editions