Give unto Others (A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery)

by Donna Leon

Hardcover, 2022

Call number

MYST LEO

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Publication

Atlantic Monthly Press (2022), Edition: First Edition, 295 pages

Description

Brunetti is forced to confront the price of loyalty, to his past and in his work, as a seemingly innocent request leads him into troubling waters. 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 31st 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, and not as official police business. Foscarini's son-in-law, Enrico Fenzo, has alarmed his wife (her daughter) by confessing their family might be in danger because of something he's involved with. Since Fenzo is an accountant, Brunetti logically suspects the cause of danger is related to the finances of a client. Yet his clients seem benign: an optician, a restaurateur, a charity established by his father-in-law. However, when his friend's daughter's place of work is vandalized, Brunetti asks his own favors - that his colleagues Claudia Griffoni, Lorenzo Vianello, and Signorina Elettra Zorzi assist his private investigation, which soon enough turns official as they uncover the dark and Janus-faced nature of a venerable Italian institution. Exploring the wobbly line between the criminal and non-criminal, revealing previously untold elements of Brunetti's past, Give Unto Others shows that the price of reciprocity can be steep.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Dokfintong
Why do we read Donna Leon? For the mystery? Not really. We read for her insight into the hearts of her characters and for the deft way that Brunetti and his team make their way forward through the thicket of politics, crime, family, and memory that is Venice. This is perhaps not the most thrilling
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Brunetti ever but I found it particularly affecting, especially the initial chapters. Then, when the truth is revealed, these initial chapters and the emotional response evoked, are especially – what is the word I want here? Poignant? Telling? Sad? You read it and tell me.

I received a digital review copy of "Give unto Others: Commissario Brunetti 31" by Donna Leon from Grove Atlantic through NetGalley.com.
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LibraryThing member jetangen4571
family, family-dynamics, fraud, friendship, investigation, class-consciousness, law-enforcement, Venice Italy, language, dementia, deceit****

It began as a collaborative non-official investigation into an old acquaintance's family matter at that person's request to Brunetti. Until it became
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necessarily official even though it needed to belong to the fraud/tax department. It all is happening in the time of changes everywhere due to the restrictions and isolations of the pandemia. The story is both realistic and complicated and covers such diverse topics as dementia, toxic personality, class issues, and even dialectical differences. Even though I got lost in the language issues, I really enjoyed this addition to the series.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Grove Atlantic/Atlantic Monthly Press via NetGalley. Thank you!
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LibraryThing member Carmenere
I like Ms. Leon, don't get me wrong but this novel, due to be released a few months, seems like a non-starter. No murders, not a lot of action, I'd call it more of a cerebral non-thriller.
That said, any book by Leon with her lovely descriptions of Venice make for a pleasant literary vacation.
Thank
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you NetGalley, publisher and author for allowing me access to this novel.
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LibraryThing member Judiex
Soon after the Coronavirus hit, the Brunettis realized it would attract scamers trying to get money for services not provided or losses not experienced. Companies would be created to fail as a way to be bailed out. Distance and masking changed personal relationships. “Icy formality had been
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imposed upon them all, and Brunetti realized how much he missed the soft, caressing humanity of the past.”
The daughter of a former neighbor who had been good friends with his mother and his family when he was a child stopped at Commissaraio Guide Brunetti’s office. Her family had lived in a large apartment in the building where his father was the handyman. They lived in a small, basement apartment.
She thought her daughter was in danger and was suspicious of her son-in-law, an accountant. Brunetti wondered or not they should take the case because he was asked to because of their former relationship, not because it was or might be a criminal matter.
If he asked about the son-in-law, the story would spread like an infection. Gathering information: “Long before computer chips could collect someone’s personal data, their neighbors did. The neighbors and friends knew the reasons..., while the chips could provide only written records. “Sooner or later, it would pass to a person who was peculiarly at risk from the disease. Some were struck down; others paid legal doctors to find a cure.”
As Brunetti observes, solving this case is like playing a pinball machine with information being bounced all around while trying to score as many points as possible.
While fraud is the basis of the case, the vandalism of the daughter’s veterinary hospital gives probability to the danger.
In addition, Signorina Elettra’s desk was being bugged.
As usual, Donna Leon’s story plot moves smoothly and gently. The characters are believable and familiar. The ending is not predictable.
Tidbit: People claimed to believe in things because they had learned them long ago, even if they no longer believed in them but had nothing else to believe in.
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LibraryThing member sleahey
This latest in Leon's Brunetti series is current enough to take place during the covid pandemic, which of course is wreaking havoc on Venice tourism. Brunetti is contacted in confidence by a distant childhood friend who is vaguely concerned that her adult daughter has been placed in danger by her
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husband's actions. With little to go on, and working somewhat outside of normal channels, Brunetti and his staff uncover the clues and piece together the situation without much fanfare. As usual with Leon's mysteries, Venice plays a major part and sets a lovely stage for Brunetti's work.
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LibraryThing member pennykaplan
An old acquaintance of his Mothers comes to him fearing her son in law is in danger. As a kindness Brunetti investigates and finds things are not what they seem. Better plotted than most recent ones. Still Venice and graft again.
LibraryThing member AnnieMod
Unlike most of the series novels, this one does not start with a murder. Instead of that, an old acquaintance of Brunetti's mother comes to ask him for help with her daughter - the mother is concerned with what the son-in-law had said one day. Apparently it was a slow day/week for crime in Venice
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so he decides to help and even gets his usual collaborators (I mean favorite coworkers - Claudia, Vianello and Signorina Elettra) to help him. Before long a real crime is committed but things just do not add up - either in that crime or in the initial situation. So they keep digging... all the way down to the truth and its horror. If you thought that murder is the vilest crime, you may change your mind after this novel - humanity can be much more cruel than that.

It is a calm novel - Venice is still recovering from the pandemic, the tourists had not come back yet (which is both a relief and a concern for a city which relies on them) and the author chose to spend a lot more time in Brunetti's head than usual - we get details about his past (some we knew, some we did not from previous novels), we get his usual musings on the economy and Venice, we get more details than had become usual for the series about his family and their life. In a way, the book is too calm - it is not a thriller under any definition, it is barely a mystery. And yet, it works. I am not sure it can work as a standalone - most of the strong moments came from the connections to past novels and from knowing everyone. While the Brunetti novels can rarely work if you remove him and Venice, this one is especially impossible without them - even the crimes when they finally are revealed are Italian and Venetian and while not impossible elsewhere, won't work if removed to somewhere else. And their resolution needed the Brunetti style in more than one way - the imperfect Commissario who knows who he is and what he can (and cannot do) and who is first and foremost a Venetian.

A nice entry to a long running series - and now waiting on Leon to write the next one. Again.
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LibraryThing member charlie68
An unusual mystery, slow moving at first but builds up steam nicely, manages to portray the city of Venice and its people well.
LibraryThing member thornton37814
A neighbor from Bruno's childhood turns up at the Questura seeking Bruno's help in determining if her daughter might be in danger because of her son-in-law's job. It's an unofficial investigation but since Claudia sat in on the interview, they pursue it during a period of low crime. The author
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incorporates elements of the pandemic into the narrative. The son-in-law helped set up a charity for his father-in-law to provide help to a small Belize hospital. The daughter's veterinary clinic is vandalized, and they need to ask questions relating to that. It becomes apparent they need to bring the Guardia de Finanza into the loop, but how can they do this without somehow tarnishing their own reputations? They realize their questionable interviews all occurred after the break-in so they can claim the questions related to that. Before they can report, an article appears in the paper stating another person involved with the charity was under investigation for involvement in a possible charity scam. I would have preferred an official investigation so this one isn't my favorite, but the author manages to draw in the reader. I listened to the audio book.
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LibraryThing member cyderry
Fraud is the theme of this installment of the Guido Brunetti series - both financial and personal. Brunetti is confronted by a person from his past - a childhood neighbor, Elisabetta, asks him as a favor to try to find out what is wrong with her son-in-law and why her daughter should be frightened
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and feel threatened. Since Elisabetta's mother was kind to him as well as his brother and mother, he makes an effort to see if there is something that could be wrong. The deeper he and a few of his team delve, the more it appears that it is Elisabetta's husband that is the problem, not her son-in-law.

Ah, the tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive. It was very entertaining to watch as the frauds are exposed and the ramifications.

Not one of her best, but still good to see Guido in action.
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LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Commissario Guido Brunetti agrees to do a favor for a former neighbor because her mother had been kind to his mother. Her daughter has confided in her that some unspecified danger threatens her husband and, by extension, herself. Her concern for her only child motivates her to seek out her old
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acquaintance in the Questura. Guido enlists the help of his colleagues Griffoni, Vianello, and Signorina Elettra to do some unofficial exploring. Their research soon leads them to a dodgy charity founded by the former neighbor’s husband. Will Guido and his colleagues finally pay the price for their off-the-books investigative methods?

I found this latest Brunetti novel less satisfactory than most of the series books that precede it. First of all, it’s not a homicide investigation. Secondly, Brunetti has had back-of-his-mind worries about his team’s unorthodox investigations throughout most of the series without these fears being realized, so why would it be any different this time? The tension feels exaggerated. The main thing this book accomplishes is to show that Brunetti is fallible, since he takes his old acquaintance’s story at face value and doesn’t suspect until very late that she’s been manipulating him all along.
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LibraryThing member diana.hauser
Give Unto Others is written by Donna Leon.
“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 31st installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series.”
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(Amazon)

A brilliant philosophical puzzle.
Every title in this highly acclaimed series focuses on a general malady/issue/problem/crime and in every title Guido Brunetti uses logic, reason and philosophy to ‘solve’ the problem and find some sliver of justice or accountability.
We are on Book #31 now (31 out of 32 titles with #33 to be published in July 2024).

Issues/problems/crimes include, but are not limited to, stalking, the treatment of women, senility & dementia, medical issues, criminality, deceit, pollution, the environment, theft, corruption, wealth, water, safety, human trafficking, fishing, greed, jealousy, academia, opera, immigrants, military academies, religion, accounting, charity scams, police & policing methods, & computer hacking.
a superb title and superb series *****
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Pages

295

ISBN

0802159400 / 9780802159403
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