A transvestite whore is dead in Venice. He/she was dressed, made-up and wearing red high heels. Commissario Brunetti of the Venetian police is sent to investigate in this formula mystery/police procedural by Donna Leon that proved a good enough read to demand a review.
It is the earliest of the mystery series set in Venice, Italy revolving around the good investigator, Brunetti that I have read. I say "I have read" because this is number 14 in the series. Ms. Leon is prolific. More to the point is that she is keeping the characters fresh and the mysteries interesting.
A group of four of her books came in the coveted CARE package from my father-in-law. His tastes run to weighty biographies and stories of adventurers (Into Thin Air and Endurance). I was, therefore, more tempted to try a formula mystery he had enjoyed. Our tastes are not always alike.
In some previous reviews such as In The Company Of Cheerful Ladies, With No One As Witness, and BlowFly by Patricia Cornwell, I have been interested in the nature of formula mysteries as much as the particular book. I read a book on writing formula mysteries for fun and profit a lot of years ago. It was a guideline for developing characters, a sense of place, and even a plot. Then off you went to develop your writing style in a genre, it was written, which was relatively easy to master and in which you could turn a literary profit. Looking back, I think that I should have given it a try.
From the point of view of the reader, the formula must provide characters deeply enough felt and strongly enough drawn to interest us, entrance or annoy us, burrow into the semi-consciousness of reading for pleasure. They have to be people who stay with you - Sam Spade, Nero Wolfe, Ratso, Sherlock Holmes (no formula writer, that one), Kay Scarpetta (in her better days), crotchety Hercule Poirot and on into future heroes. They have to have the depth of character to become part of us but must not be a Dickensian character developed from childhood over a thousand pages. Formula characters are our friends and neighbors, role models, and poster stars. They are to be liked or loved but not to be known too well.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
Maybe Italian policemen do study curtains. I can remember that one of my first images of Rome - arriving as a naive Australian 24-year-old was all of the men window-shopping for clothes. Men. Windowshopping. They stood there, debating the virtue of this pair of trousers, that jacket, and I stood watching them, astonished.