So Shall You Reap

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As Paola’s actions provoke a crisis in the Brunetti household, Brunetti himself is under increasing pressure at work: a daring robbery with Mafia connections is linked to a suspicious death and his superiors need quick results. Brunetti harbours a certain resentment in respect of the incremental changes ongoing in this place, but isn’t that true of all of us as we reach a certain age? He believes the man’s death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse – and more sinister material – in his company’s trucks. Fazio managed to get the names and addresses of a few people who were there, but – you know how it is – no one saw anything.

The attack, in the beautiful palazzo home of Flavia Petrelli, reigning diva of La Scala, had come with a message: ‘Don’t keep that appointment with Dottor Semenzato. The following is an exclusive excerpt from So Shall You Reap , the new novel by Donna Leon, forthcoming in March 2023, in which Commissario Brunetti investigates the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant, which leads to the solution of a decades-old disappearance and murder. Brunetti’s hopes of a refreshing family holiday in the mountains are once again dashed when a gruesome discovery is made in Marghera – a body so badly beaten the face is unrecognizable.The man’s mother is angry and contradictory when questioned about his death, and Brunetti senses that there much more to the story than she is willing to tell.

He had never fired his gun and had never had the sudden realization of who was responsible for a crime, but he had more than once put himself in danger to help a fellow officer. As Brunetti investigates, it becomes clear that the motive for the murder was unlikely to have been greed, rather that it had its roots in the temptations of lust. At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman.There was supposed to be singing and maybe a few speeches, but they hadn’t figured on the rain, so things got confused, and it was after eleven by the time they left COIN. As she attempts to leave the country, carrying a considerable sum of money and forged papers, the maid runs into the path of an oncoming train and is killed. The Brunetti family didn’t feature in it much and the solution to the murder mystery was easy to work out from clues scattered throughout the book. In this 32nd book in the 'Commissario Guido Brunetti' series, the Italian policeman investigates the murder of an immigrant from Sri Lanka.