Friends in High Places by Donna Leon and Anna Fields

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Friends in High Places from Mystery & Thrillers

Friends in High Places
Available from Amazon
Price: $56.00
Updated on 11-9-2008.

Features

Audio CD

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged edition (December 2001)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0786196467

ISBN-13: 978-0786196463

Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches

Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces ()

From AudioFile
Mystery fans who are looking for a change of scenery and international ambience should get to know Guido Brunetti, commissario of the Venice police. Anna Fields deftly narrates this well-drawn plot of political corruption, murder, and drugs. Fields is at home in the city and canals of Venice. She brings forward the complexities of Brunetti's character, balancing his compassion and idealism with a tough cynicism born of many years experience with the bureaucrats and the powerful of Venice. Fields maintains a good pace for building the framework of clues that fit neatly together in unexpected ways. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
With her chronicles of the Venetian policeman Commissario Guido Brunetti, Leon gives us a beguiling picture of daily life in the watery, crooked city of Venice. The recent books have become increasingly exotic, with the solutions to apparently local murders stretching across the world to the drug and pornography empires of new Eastern Europe, or the nuclear waste industry. Now, with Friends in High Places, we are back in the claustrophobic world of the Veneto, and embroiled in the corrupt intricacies of Venetian planning law (it opens with a scene where Brunetti is informed by a strict young man that his apartment does not legally exist). We are also in the universal sad, sleazy world of student drugtaking. The strict young man is found dead at the foot of some scaffolding; the ghastly Vice-Questore Patta is preoccupied by his own son's involvement in drugs; the delectable Signorina Elettra is still illegally hacking into every civic computer going, in the service of her boss Brunetti. The answer is not exotic this time, but sordid and mundane. The book is none the worse for that but it is less lyrical and romantic in its undertones than some of the others; I slightly miss that note, and hope that Leon returns to it. However, as usual I wouldn't have missed it for the world. The solution is satisfying, Paola's cookery still excellent, Brunetti still my hero, and Leon remains a crime writer for those who tend to lose patience with crime writers. All that, and Venice too. Bravo! Review by LIBBY PURVES (Kirkus UK) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Friends in High Places (Paperback) Without a doubt, "Friends in High Places" is Donna Leon's best book in her mesmerizing Commissario Brunetti series. "Friends" is the ninth in this outstanding series and Leon has not failed her fans with this latest edition, which, for some unfathomable reason, is not yet published in the States! The author is able to capture what very few writers in the mystery genre do-- she creates such memorable characters that the reader actually feels he really knows--and even possibly understands--her creations. Certainly, Leon does to Venice what few other writers do to their settings. It is unbelievable that she is able to understand fully the mechanizations of the modern Venetian. She has weaved her plots so intricately--and plausibly--in her series, which seems short of a miracle for some "outsider"--she's an American!--to be able to grasp the bureaucracies of that system, be it religious, political, social, even the illicit "trade" bureaucracies. With her unforgettable Brunetti and his family, Leon's themes run throughout her novels: among them the "moral path" which is at odds with what Venetians have come to expect and to accept, it seems. If one has a problem, the solution is to utilize his "friends in high places"--a favor for a favor--to solve it. The corruption seems to permeate all aspects of their lives. But, of course, first, this is a murder mystery, and here, again, Leon is in top form. How exquisitely she leads the reader through this valley of temptation and evil! Yet, despite the impossible task of ever "cleaning up Venice," Brunetti plods on. He alone, it seems at times, knows right from wrong. He takes refuge and solace from his wife Paola; he loves his two children, and his greatest fear is that something evil might harm them. He senses something is very wrong when a local bureaucrat is found dead; it is labeled an accident, but Brunetti has his suspicions, especially after this bureaucrat had previously contacted him to tell him that he had vital information that he must reveal to him, and to him alone. Before this revelation can occur, he is found dead. Brunetti doesn't believe in coincidences, especially when an attorney who is involved in a corruption investigation is found murdered by a sniper--an attorney whose telephone number Brunetti had found in the bureaucrat's wallet. From this point on, Leon and Brunetti move cautiously--and sensibly--through this tangled, deceitful web. The author is quite astute in her observations and realist she is, the endings of her books are not always the "happy ever after" type. Frequently, Brunetti has to con- cede to powers greater than his; he alone cannot stem the flow of corruption--and the Brunetti world, as seen through the series, seems to have no boundaries on corruption, be it from illegal dumping of toxic wastes to the illegal sex trade with local travel companies to the smuggling of drugs from Eastern Europe. Leon leaves no holds barred and the reader is often left to wonder if there really are truly decent folk anymore. Leon does not imply that the corruption is only in Venice, that Pearl of the Adriatic, but leads us to assume that such corruption--especially with today's big bucks, can be anywhere. The average reader knows this all too well, anyway. For Leon fans, reading this book is not just an inclination, it is a must, naturally; for new readers, it's also a great read, after reading this one, they will want to go back to the eight previous ones. Indeed, it's a "aventura felice della lettura"! (...)

Friends in High Places
List Price: $56.00
Available from Amazon
Price: $56.00
Updated on 11-9-2008.