Wilful Behaviour

Description

The eleventh novel in Donna Leon's award-winning Brunetti crime series draws the Venetian Commissario into a mystery involving dark secrets dating back to the Second World War. 'A classic example of detective-book murder, it is satisfyingly difficult to resolve ... Leon whips up a brilliant narrative storm.' Sunday Times Winner of the Corine International Book Prize for Fiction __________________________________ When Commissario Brunetti receives a visit from one of his wife's students with a strange and vague interest in investigating the possibility of a pardon for a crime committed by her grandfather many years ago, he thinks little of it, despite being intrigued by the girl's intelligence and moral conscience. But when the girl is found stabbed to death, Claudia Leonardo is no longer Paola's student, but instead becomes Brunetti's case. Claudia seemed to have no discernible living family, but lived with an elderly Austrian woman. Brunetti is stunned by the extraordinary art collection the old woman keeps, and when she in turn is found dead, the case begins to unlock long buried secrets of collaboration during the war, secrets few in Italy are happy to explore...

Donna Leon was named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers. She is an award-winning crime novelist, celebrated for the bestselling Brunetti series. Donna has lived in Venice for thirty years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Donna's books have been translated into 35 languages and have been published around the world. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; including Friends in High Places, which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Fatal Remedies, Doctored Evidence, A Sea of Troubles and Beastly Things.

A classic example of detective-book murder, it is satisfyingly difficult to resolve ... Leon whips up a brilliant narrative storm * Sunday Times * Compelling ... absorbingly detailed ... this is a powerful story, brilliantly evoking Venetian atmosphere, and the characters of Brunetti and his family continue to deepen throughout this series * The Times * Donna Leon's novels have become successively more subtle, more complex and perhaps more serious, without ever losing their compelling power as narratives. This is especially true of Wilful Behaviour; the story is wholly engrossing * Evening Standard *