February 2009 Archives
A environmental theme runs through all of Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series, and comes out particularly powerfully in this tale of family businesses facing financial troubles partly due to increased regulation and awareness of the industrial waste that runs (pours?) into Venice's famous lagoon.
But the green theme does not overpower the principal plotline, where Brunetti and Inspector Vianello investigate a murder in a glass factory on the island of Murano, and family strife between the generations, the sexes and the in-laws.
Amazon.co.uk links:
When a father and son are found murdered in their fishing boat on the island of Pellestrina, Comissario Brunetti and Detective Vianello leave their familiar turf of La Serenissima to investigate... which turns out to be a tricky task when faced with such a closed and close knit community.
When the ever resourceful Singorina Elletra volunteers to go undercover on the basis that she has relatives on Pellestrina and has regularly holidayed there in the past, Brunetti finds himself up against an equally impenetrably barrier; his attempts to dissuade her fail and the team find themselves truly in a sea of troubles.
In this novel, the crime and 'police procedural' part of the plot play second fiddle to the key characters - Guido and Paola Brunetti, Vianello and Elletra, and the island communities that inhabit the Venetian Laguna.
Links
With all eyes on the G8 summit at Gleneagles mass protests in support of the Make Poverty History campaign hit Edinburgh.... and bring Siobhan's somewhat hippie parents north of the border for the first time. Siobhan is torn between spending time with her folks and pursuing her big breakthrough opportunity after she finds the remains of a murder victim's clothing at a Clootie Well close to Gleneagles, which suggests there's a serial killer on the loose targeting released rapists.
Rebus meanwhile, inching ever closer to retirement, is warned off hijacking Siobhan's investigation, and from delving too deeply into the unexpected early demise of a minor politican who falls to his death from the walls of Edinburgh Castle.
There's politics and current affairs galore in The Naming of the Dead plus the equally tricky, emotional and powerful territory of family relationships too.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Naming of the Dead - Ian Rankin
The third and final installment of The Grail Quest sees English archer Thomas of Hookton once more in France, this time leading a group of archers in the seizing of a fortified Gascon town - a pretext devised by the Earl of Northampton to lure cousin Guy Vexille into the family heartlands and into revealing more about the Vexille treasure.... and the tantalising legend of the Grail.
With seiges and skirmishes in place of battles, Heretic is a classic tale of good versus evil. When Thomas and Robbie both fall for heretic femme fatale, Genevieve, their subseqent falling out threatens to give arch enemy Vexille and ambitious Archbishop Bessieres the upper hand in their respective quests for the Grail and the power it brings.... until the plague starts its deathly advance across Europe....
Amazon.co.uk links: