Doctored Evidence
A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
Donna Leon
Review: Venice Commissioner of Police Guido Brunetti makes his 13th appearance in Donna Leon's Doctored Evidence.
What makes Leon's books such a treat is that the reader "solves" the mystery together with Brunetti. By carefully examining the evidence, sorting through the clues, and putting the often disparate pieces of the crime puzzle together to form a coherent picture, a solution slowly forms that is frequently unexpected. Brunetti's co-workers and family frequently play an important role in these mysteries; in Doctored Evidence, the formidable computer wizard Signorina Elettra, the dogged Lieutenant Scarpa, and Brunetti's always literate wife Paola, each in their own way, provide clues to unraveling the mystery of the old woman's murder.
Donna Leon is one of the premiere authors of detective fiction writing today and the cleverly titled Doctored Evidence is one of the year's best mysteries.
Acknowledgment: Atlantic Monthly Press provided an ARC of Doctored Evidence for this review.
Review Copyright © 2004 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Through a Glass, Darkly
Atlantic Monthly Press (Hardcover), May 2006
ISBN-13: 9780871139375; ISBN-10: 0871139375
Location(s) referenced in Doctored Evidence: Venice, Italy
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Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-87113-918-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-87113-918-4
Publication Date: April 2004
List Price: $22.00
Synopsis (from the publisher): After the body of a wealthy elderly woman is found brutally murdered in her Venetian apartment, the police suspect her maid, who has disappeared and is heading for her native Romania. When the woman is approached by the border police as her train is leaving Italy, she makes a run for it and is killed as she crosses the tracks. She has a considerable sum of money on her and her papers are obvious forgeries. Case closed.
But when the old woman’s neighbor returns from a business trip in London, it becomes clear that the maid could not have had time to kill the old woman before catching her train and that the money on her was not stolen. Commissario Guido Brunetti decides—unofficially—to take on the case himself.
At home, Brunetti’s loving wife, Paola, reads the chapter in her daughter’s religious instruction book about the Seven Deadly Sins. As he investigates the case, Brunetti realizes that this is probably not a crime motivated by Greed, rather that the motive may have more to do with the temptations of Lust. But perhaps Brunetti is following a false trail and thinking of the wrong sin altogether.
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