Venice is Sinking. Poor Inspector Brunetti!

"The faint odour of cloves greeted him when he got home, luring him into the kitchen to see what Paola was up to. Spezzatino di manzo with exotic spices, it seemed, and if he knew anything about vegetables, Cavolini di bruxelles alla besciamella." (Donna Leon, The Temptation of Forgiveness).

Before I say any more about Donna Leon's 2018 detective novel, The Temptation of Forgiveness, I'll mention that she does describe a couple of typical Venetian meals cooked by the wife of Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice police force. Spezzatino di manzo is Venetian beef stew, and Cavolini di bruxelles alla besciamella is Brussels sprouts in cream sauce. As always, Brunetti's devoted wife Paola is a wonderful cook, as in this quote from quite a bit later: "Paola restored harmony, or rather, her fresh chestnut and hazelnut cake restored harmony." Although the food descriptions in this book aren't really as detailed or tempting as in some of the earlier books, they aren't bad either!

Brunetti is a severely, maybe overly, honest and idealistic policeman, who loves his family and is immensely sympathetic to the innocent victims of crime and of mismanagement in government and in the police force, issues that constantly interfere with his professional life.

Disillusionment is Commissario Brunetti's main feeling throughout this book. Maybe you would be disillusioned too if your son and daughter had been adolescent high schoolers since 1992, but that's how life happens when you are the hero of a 29 book series of detective novels. Readers of detective fiction get used to such things: remember Hercule Poirot in the Agatha Christie series retired before World War I but kept detecting until the 1960s.

To illustrate one of the actual sources of his discomfort, here is the description of Brunetti's boss:

"Most of Vice-Questore Patta’s behaviour was predictable for a man who had progressed through government bureaucracy. He seemed busier than he was; he never missed the opportunity to claim for himself any praise given to the organization for which he worked; he had a black belt in shifting blame or responsibility for failure to shoulders other than his own." (The Temptation of Forgiveness, Commissario Brunetti Book 27, p. 4). 

Brunetti's Venice is a city in deep trouble. He misses the little shops where he once bought food, toys, household necessities, and whatever is needed for daily life. They all seem to have been replaced with tourist venues selling cheap masks and souvenirs made in China, not in small workshops as in earlier times. Old buildings that had once been ordinary people's homes had been "transformed into bijoux bed and breakfasts." The mayor and city officials were indifferent to the residents, interested only in their own ability to make money and "keep the cruise ships coming at whatever cost to the citizens."

As one character in the book puts it: "Olive oil that costs fifteen Euros a half litre? Seven-hundred-Euro boots? A coffee that costs twice what most bars charge?... And as far as the other places go, what Venetian wants a glass elephant or a plastic mask?" As he walks around the city, Brunetti notices "many empty places where formerly had stood fruit and vegetable stalls; half the fishmongers were gone."

Another time: "When was it, Brunetti wondered, that kiosks had ceased to sell primarily newspapers and magazines, and now sold compact discs, trinkets, key chains, and T-shirts? And when had the men inside ceased to be Italian?"

In the news right now, in March of 2020. I have been reading about the situation in Venice, including these problems and more. Last fall, Venice had floods, and now the coronavirus is threatening all of northern Italy. The carnival was called off, and the tourists that local Venetians both despise and depend on have disappeared, threatening the city's prosperity.

A current article titled "‘It’s the last nail in the coffin’: Venice empties as coronavirus spreads" makes the problems all too clear:

"The Venetian tourism industry is still reeling after severe flooding in November left much of the city under water; now it has a very different kind of crisis to face. More than 800 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Italy, and 29 people have died. 

“'We were waiting for the carnival to get the economy going again after the acqua alta, but now we have a new problem,' said Sabrina, a worker at fashion store Sartoria dei Dogi. 

"The floods reduced turnover in Venice by 40% in the final quarter of last year, according to local government figures, and estimates suggest the virus will cause a downturn of 30-40% in this quarter. 

"More than 40% of hotel bookings have been cancelled, according to the Venetian Hoteliers Association."

What's the bright side?  One Venetian quoted in the article put it this way: “Of course it’s terrible that livelihoods are being affected, but now people can breathe.” This is the feeling that you get from reading about Brunetti's feelings about the hollowed-out city that no longer seems alive for residents, only for tourists. He can't breathe!

Oh, yes -- there's a mystery in this book, and Brunetti eventually gets to the bottom of it. But unlike in most of the other books in the series, the plot seems less important than Brunetti's dissatisfaction with the terrible ways that his city has changed.

Donna Leon's production of novels in the Brunetti series has been consistent -- around one a year -- and always pretty good, in my opinion. Also a cookbook of the foods he ate (blogged here: Commissario Brunetti Eats Lunch). The Brunetti series has already covered the Venice floods in the book Aqua Alta (book 5 in the Brunetti series, originally published 1996). I suspect she might do a coronavirus in Venice book at some time in the future, but of course none of knows how that's going to turn out, we can only fear it.

I'm not sure why I missed The Temptation of Forgiveness, number 27 in the series, when it came out a couple of years ago, but I"m glad I finally read it. I did read number 28, and maybe I'll read the next one soon.

Donna Leon's next book, Trace Elements,
will be released on March 3, 2020.
It's number 29 in the Brunetti series.

Page numbers are missing from most of my quotations here because the Kindle edition has messed them up, and after page 32, they all say page 33. Sorry, I don't know how to fix that.

This review copyright © 2020 by mae sander for maefood dot blog spot dot com.

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