Give Unto Others

Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 31

By: Donna Leon

Narrated by: David Colacci

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 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, and not as official police business. Foscarini’s son-in-law, Enrico Fenzo, has alarmed his wife 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 Foscarini’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.

©2022 Donna Leon (P)2022 Recorded Books

Best of the series

Wonderful book David’s performance is magical and having visited Venice I felt as if I was there walking along the canals

Thirty one books and still wonderful

Donna Leon writes excellent prose and dialogue. And characters, and settings. Even this, the thirty-first book in this series, puts the reader smack in the middle of Venice, with its rot, its beauty, and its crime. But, sadly, I think, like Bruno, this book is showing its age.

We have brief mentions of Bruno’s family. The dialogue within the family are some of Leon’s best so I missed having more of it.

The story itself was good. Not one of the best in the series but interesting. I was disappointed in the way the ending played out resulting in only 4 stars.

David Colacci’s narration, as always, was perfect. He is definitely the voice of Guido.

I certainly hope that we have several more Guido Brunetti books.

Complex.

Excellent character studies. The mystery is in the human behavior. One of her most interesting.

Slower listen

Relistening recommended to appreciate the richness of the character of Guido and Paolo. I like reading their lives better thats all.

Atmospheric Donna Leon novel

I love the way author Leon conjures up Venice in her 'Commissario Brunetti' mysteries. 'Give Unto Others' does not disappoint, though it moves extremely slowly and with many minuscule details. The narrator holds us spellbound.