In Leon's fifth Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery, the beating of renowned art historian Dotoressa Brett Lynch draws the contemporary Venetian police detective out of his warm and loving home and into the yearly onslaught of acqua alta, the torrential winter rains. Brett, an American who spearheaded a recent exhibition of Chinese pottery in Venice, lives with her lover, Flavia Petrelli, the reigning diva of La Scala. With his open mind and good sense,...

"Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper ... Venice. Caroline's quest: to scatter Juliet "Lettie" Browning's ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years. It's 1938 when art teacher Juliet Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it's a...

"When one of his wife's Paola's students comes to visit him, with a strange and vague interest in investigating the possibility of a pardon for a crime committed by her grandfather many years ago, Commissario Brunetti thinks little of it. But when the girl is found dead, clearly stabbed to death, Claudia Leonardo suddenly becomes Brunetti's case, no longer Paola's student. Claudia seems to have no discernible living family - her only familial relationship...

When Nicholas Brink leaves New York City to join Clay Guillory in Italy, he thinks he knows what he's getting into. His more experienced boyfriend has come into a small inheritance from an eccentric bohemian artist: the windfall consists of counterfeit heirlooms as well as a share in a decrepit Venetian palazzo. Clay hopes to use Nick's connection to an antiques dealer to unload the fake silver on a brash, unsuspecting American. Clay's smarts and...

"When a U.S. army officer's daughter's kidnapped from an American base in Venice, Second Lieutenant Holly Boland, Venetian police captain Kat Tapo, and a genius webmaster join forces to find the missing girl and unravel a nefarious plot that reaches back to Italy's dark wartime past." --

THE VICTIM: On the steps of Santa Maria della Salute lies the body of a woman, wearing the robes of a Catholic priest. In the eyes of the Church, she is an abomination. THE INVESTIGATOR: Captain Kat Tapo has matched the victim's tattoo to graffiti in an abandoned asylum. Now she's been ordered to close the case. THE HACKER: Carnivia.com is a virtual Venice that holds the city's secrets. Only its reclusive creator can help Kat unearth the shocking...

"What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It's a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in Give unto Others, Donna Leon's splendid thirty-first installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series. Brunetti is approached for a favor by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows casually, but her mother was good to Brunetti's mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately,...

Years ago, Emily's childhood nemesis, Emma Callum, scandalized polite society when she eloped to Venice with an Italian count. Now Emma's father-in-law lies murdered, and her husband has vanished. There's no one she can turn to for help but Emily, who leaves at once for Venice with her husband, the dashing Colin Hargreaves. Emily soon realizes that to solve the present-day crime, she must first unravel a centuries-old puzzle. But the past does not...

"Quick has chosen a fascinating backdrop. Her novel shimmers.…This is a good read." - Booklist "Quick's descriptions of Anna Maria's violin playing soar off the page, evoking Vivaldi's own compositions." - San Francisco Chronicle "A genuine successor to [Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring]." - Houston Chronicle

Professor David Ullman is a leading authority on demonic literature, specializing in Milton's Paradise Lost. David sees what he teaches as a branch of the imagination and nothing more. So when the mysterious Thin Woman invites him to Venice to witness a "phenomenon," he turns her down. She leaves behind plane tickets and an address, advising David that her employer is not often disappointed. And what happens in Venice will change everything.