Reading and Enjoying Spring Weather

 Julia Alvarez: The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Julia Alvarez is a wonderful story teller! In this novel, a successful New York writer decides to return to her childhood land: the Caribbean country of Dominica — which is also the birthplace of Alvarez. The character brings with her many boxes of notes and materials from novels that she hasn’t written, and creates a “cemetery” for these unrealized projects and the characters they were going to develop. She commissions a talented sculptor make a monument to each persona whose story she didn’t finish. 

The characters who now inhabit these monuments come to life and tell their stories to a local woman who has never read fiction (in fact, she can’t read at all). I loved reading these intertwined tales, along with the story of the illiterate woman herself, and of her family, which also has some members who have become successful American immigrants.

There’s so much in this novel — themes of identity; themes of chances and of opportunities both taken and missed; themes of good and bad family relationships; and themes of the history of the island, which is divided into two countries: Dominica and Haiti. Really good reading!

Claude Izner: Murder on the Eiffel Tower

This is a historical novel that takes place in Paris in 1889 during the great exposition for which the Eiffel Tower had just been built. The painstaking historical detail in the novel is fascinating — I assume it’s accurate, but I didn’t check. For example: 

“I was lucky enough to see the exhibition of Japanese prints organised by the Van Gogh brothers. The Great Wave by Hokusai made a real impression on me.” (p. 17)

“The Colonial Exhibition was made up of numerous buildings, either standing alone or grouped into indigenous villages. Victor did not wait to look at the seven pediments of the temple of Angkor but hurried towards the red structure of the Colonial Palace, an architectural mish-mash of Norwegian, Chinese and French Renaissance styles topped by green roofing.” (p. 60)

The food details are especially fun:

“Fried-fish vendors and left-over food sellers were setting up their stalls in the wind. Dishes of beetroot sat alongside rounds of cold black pudding.” (p 161) 

 

“In the kitchen, Germaine, with tousled hair and apron askew, was stirring the contents of a saucepan with a wooden spoon. Victor sniffed, recognising the aroma of partridge and cabbage in a cognac sauce.” (p. 207) 

Unfortunately, as a detective story this novel is too complicated. One murder after another piles up, and one man becomes obsessed with the murders and tries to figure out how they are linked and who is the perpetrator. At a frantic pace, he follows one suspect after another, becoming exhausted and confused. He also falls in love with a woman who is also enmeshed in the goings-on. He keeps having migraine headaches, or being hit over the head, or being baffled and overtired, or pursuing the love interest instead of the mystery. He’s always trying to think of some elusive insight that he can’t quite bring to the surface. There’s too much of this type of description:

“An idea was taking hold, but just out of his reach. He put on his frock coat as his mind worked on. … His memory was still teasing him: it was something to do with a name he had glimpsed recently, a name … But what name?” (p. 203)

I found the author’s mystery skills somewhat clumsy, and the piling-on of details and events somewhat unbelievable. Compared to Agatha Christie or other classic writers of the twentieth century, Izner just isn’t quite as good at creating a plot, embedding clues, or building suspense. I’m thinking of the well-formed detectives, victims, by-standers and witnesses in the novels of Martin Walker or Elly Griffiths or Donna Leon, and I just don’t find Izner’s focus and clarity to measure up.

Spring Pictures from This Week

Sunrise outside my bedroom window.

Just before the rain.

The beaver lodge at Matthaei Botanical Gardens.
Last year, the beaver built a dam across the stream, but a winter storm washed it away.

Michigan students painting “The Rock” — maybe in anticipation of finals during the next two weeks.

The magic spoon turns purple when the frozen ice cream touches it.
After a spring walk in the woods, we stopped for ice cream.

I enjoyed a scoop of each of these flavors.

Blog post and all photos © 2024 mae sander

Shared with Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz.

Alien Detectives

In 1953, Isaac Asimov’s Sci-Fi-Detective story “The Caves of Steel”
was set in the distant future when space travel to colonized planets would be the norm.
Many authors set detective fiction in rather exotic places: this one is extreme! (source)

Jean-Luc Bannalec is an author I’ve been reading recently, and I thought he was French. Nope. Turns out that Banalec is a pen name, and his real name is Jörg Bong. He is German. Bannaluc’s Brittany mystery series about Commissaire Dupin is his big international success. His police officer, Dupin, is from Paris, so we are seeing Brittany from the point of view of an outsider, but not a German! Dupin loves Breton food, which is described in every novel as part of the local color. 

Thinking about this made me consider how many other detective fictions are set in places not native to their authors, about detectives from very different backgrounds from their own. I’ve also noticed that in creating their exotic settings, many of these authors use local foods to create atmosphere and provide a background for the action — in several cases, cookbooks have been written to show what the detectives ate and how it was prepared. I’ve enjoyed reading books from each of these series, and recommend them all!

Martin Walker, born in Scotland, was a journalist who became a crime-fiction writer. His Bruno books are written in English about the Perigord area of France, where he and his wife have lived for some time. Bruno is an amazing cook. Walker has also written a cookbook about the fantastic French country cuisine that is described in every novel — I’ve been exploring his recipes.

Georges Simenon, author of a renowned series of police procedural novels, was actually from Belgium. His famous Inspector Maigret lives in Paris and works for the Paris police. Madam Maigret is a fantastic cook — and yes, there’s a Madam Maigret cookbook.

Donna Leon, inventor of Guido Brunetti of the Venice police force, was born in New Jersey. All thirty-two of her novels were written in English and have never been translated into Italian. Brunetti is another policeman who loves good food — and yes, there’s a cookbook.

Tony Hillerman invented the Navajo policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. He lived not far from the reservation, but no way was he a Native American. Hillerman’s daughter has continued the series after his death. She’s also written guides — including restaurant guides — to the New Mexico area, though food is not as central in these books as in many others. Her book Santa Fe Flavors isn’t connected to the detective novels.

Jason Goodwin has written five novels about Investigator Yashim, set in Istanbul in the 1830s. Goodwin, who was born in England, identifies himself as "a novelist, historian and columnist; host, dragoman and hierophant." Yashim, while in the course of solving a crime, often spends time buying food at the market and then preparing it, which is described in great detail. Goodwin has published a collection of recipes titled Yashim Cooks Istanbul. (Note: a hierophant is a priest of esoteric mysteries.)

Louise Penny, born in Toronto, Canada, was a radio host; she is the much-loved author of a series of books set in Quebec, featuring French-speaking detective Armand Gamache. Yes, there is food: Penny has written a short cookbook titled The Nature of the Feast, which is available online from her publisher.

Sujata Massey, born in Sussex, England, grew up in St. Paul Minnesota from the age of five. She has written two series of novels featuring amateur women detectives. The first series is set in Bombay, India, in the early 1920s with detective Perveen Mistry. The second is set in Tokyo and Washington, DC, with a Japanese-American detective named Rei Shimura. Every one of these novels offers lots of food descriptions that create atmosphere and help define the characters.

Edgar Allen Poe was one of the first ever detective writers, and his most famous story is “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” He never actually visited Paris. (Note that his detective, who also appeared in two other stories, was also named Dupin!)

Robert van Gulik may be the creator of a detective with the most totally different cultural background from his own. Van Gulik’s character, Judge Dee, based on a semi-fictitious Tang Dynasty government official, investigates a series of murders in various parts of China in the seventh century. Van Gulik was born in the Netherlands, and wrote both in Dutch and English. He got the idea for his series from a 19th century treatment of the character, but invented new plots and stories.

On TV?

I’m tempted to mention “Death in Paradise,” with its catchy Caribbean rhythms and beautiful island settings as well as numerous murder victims and police officers of various ethnicity. It’s filmed in Guadeloupe (though the TV island is the fictional Saint Marie) and made by English and French TV companies. The first episodes were made in 2011. Twelve seasons with a total of 98 episodes have now been released.

Blog post © 2023 mae sander

Very Very Noir: "Total Chaos"

Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo (1945-2000)

You couldn't imagine a less cozy mystery than this graphically violent police story about Marseilles around 30 years ago. Jean-Claude Izzo's Total Chaos (written in 1995) is dark and often ugly with lots of underworld characters from all the ethnic and social strata of the Marseilles underground and police force. It's narrated by a policeman named Fabio Montale, a native of the city. Unlike him, his friends, both alive and dead, are mainly petty criminals and hookers. His enemies are gangsters and maybe some of his fellow policemen. The plot centers on the deaths of his two best friends and a young woman, and his efforts to discover who killed them, and maybe get some revenge. 

I didn't like the book at all: just not my kind of literature. However, one feature of this novel did appeal to me very much: between the scenes of unpleasant violence and the depiction of unsavory characters, Fabio's narrative is full of very savory food descriptions. Food here is totally central to the essence of the main character/narrator and his milieu. You could almost cook following his descriptions: in fact, if you were familiar with the local cuisine, you probably could use them as recipes.

Since I'm not fond of novels with this much graphic violence, I'll just quote a few of the amazing food descriptions. 

First, here is Fabio's childhood memory of his family dining table:

"The whole family used to come here on Saturdays. There’d be big plates of pasta in sauce, with headless larks and meatballs cooked in the same sauce. The smells of tomatoes, basil, thyme, and bay filled the rooms. Bottles of rosé wine did the rounds amid much laughter." (p. 38). 

Next, his friend Honorine makes Fabio some food to take on his boat:

"I made you some foccaccia, Honorine had written on a little piece of paper. Foccaccia is made with pizza dough, filled with whatever you like, and served hot. Tonight, the filling was cured ham and mozzarella." (p. 44).

And Honorine cooks another dish:

"Honorine made stuffed peppers like no one else could. Romanian style, she called it. She’d fill the peppers with a stuffing of rice, sausage meat and a little beef, well salted and peppered, then place them in an earthenware casserole and cover them with water, add tomato coulis, thyme, bay and saw-wort, and let them cook on a very low flame, without covering. They tasted wonderful, especially if you poured a spoonful of crème fraîche over them at the last moment." (p. 161).  

Another Marseilles specialty, by Céleste, another friend:

"Céleste made better aïoli than anyone I knew, except Honorine. The cod was desalted just right, which is rare. Most people leave it to soak for too long, and give it only two soakings. It was best to soak it several times. Eight hours the first time, then three times two hours. It was also a good idea to poach it in simmering water, with fennel and pepper grains. Céleste also used a particular olive oil to give the aïoli a ‘lift.’ .... Her salads always tasted different." (p. 194).  

Fabio's colleague Pérol supplies some provisions:

"Pérol had brought beer and sandwiches. Tomatoes, anchovies and tuna. Not so easy to eat, but better than the usual revolting ham sandwiches." (p. 139).  

Simple foods reflect the Marseilles atmosphere throughout the novel.A meal with a friend at a place called Chez Mario:. 

"Mozzarella and tomatoes, with capers, anchovies and black olives, for starters. Spaghetti with clams as a main dish. Tiramisu for dessert. To drink, a Bandol, from the Pibarnon vineyards." (p. 75).

Besides the tastes and preparations, there is also frequently a memory of aromas:

"On Rue Longue-des-Capucins, the market was in full swing. Smells of coriander, cumin, curry, mint. The East. I turned right, through the Halle Delacroix, went into a bistro and ordered a double espresso and a few slices of bread and butter." (p. 79). 

Sometimes Fabio himself prepares the meal:

"I’d started cooking early in the morning, listening to old blues songs by Lightnin’ Hopkins. After washing the bass, I’d filled it with fennel, then drizzled olive oil over it. Then I made the lasagne sauce. The rest of the fennel had simmered gently in salt water, with a touch of butter. In a well-oiled pan, I gently fried slivers of onion, garlic and finely chopped pepper. A spoonful of vinegar soup, then I added tomatoes that I’d cut into little cubes and plunged in boiling water. When the water evaporated, I added the fennel." (p. 100).  

To wrap up...

In contrast to Izzo's very hard-boiled crime stories is the genre of cozy mysteries. These were just becoming popular in the 1990s when Izzo's Marseilles novels were written. The cozy mystery genre in fact was initially developed as a reaction against noir tales like this. The main focus of cozy  novels is the food (cute little lady detectives in cozy mysteries are often owners of food establishments), but I think Izzo's food is much more fascinating and appealing. The meals served in a lot of cozy mysteries probably wouldn't be as delicious as Fabio's dishes. 

If you like your police tales noir and graphic, you should read this book. I prefer my crime fiction to be somewhere in the middle, not cutesy-cozy and not ultra-violent. I like quite a few authors of this in-between style. such as Donna Leon, Martin Walker, Tony or Anne Hillerman, Elly Griffiths, Sujata Massey, Robert Parker, and quite a few others. Total Chaos is the first volume of a trilogy, but I don't think I'll be reading the other two volumes.

Blog post © 2023 mae sander

Great Natural History and Venice in a Mystery: What I've Been Reading

Great Natural History

What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds
 by Jennifer Ackerman. Published June 13, 2023.

Do you love owls? I love them! What an Owl Knows is a wonderful way to learn more about this beautiful family of birds that live on every continent except Antarctica,  The book surveys recent field work on the anatomy, the hunting skills, the breeding habits, and the life cycles of many species of owls.  It surveys efforts to rescue endangered owl species from the effects of human activities, especially the effects of logging and of expanding agriculture, which threaten the habitats they need. It also discusses human reactions to owls: superstitions, folk beliefs, inspiration of artists, and many other ways that owls affect humans. Owls have many meanings in cultures around the world: "they're creators, healers, guides, and guardians, as well as fearful, devilish presences, harbingers of doom and death." (What an Owl Knows, p. 236). 

Some things I learned

Picasso had a pet owl, which was probably very unhappy. (source)

• I didn't know that Picasso kept a pet owl named Ubu, which inspired him to create many owl images, though Ubu's life story is a bit sad, as is that of many captive owls.
• I didn't know that the characteristic round face that makes owls so distinctive was a highly effective collector of sound waves, and thus helped the owl to locate the sounds made by small prey animals in the dark or under the snow. Or that the owl's huge eyes are the only birds' eyes that point forward and see depth the same way that human eyes do. 
• I didn't know that large numbers of owls roosted in the town square in one particular Serbian town, though most owls avoid humans and are masters of camouflage. 
• I didn't know that to make a nest, most owl species look for cavities or tree hollows that have already been created by other animals, such as woodpeckers or burrowing rodents. Finding such a ready place is hard: this is why owls are so easily endangered by logging or other human development in their habitat. Nest boxes placed by humans appeal to other types of birds, but very rarely to owls.
• I didn't know that one species of baby owl that lives in a nest on the ground can frighten off predators by convincingly making the sound of a rattle snake. In general, I discovered that the many nesting choices and protective habits for raising baby owls is amazing.

How to be an Owl Parent

Most owl pairs cooperate to care for their chicks. The female stays on the nest, while the male hunts and brings food to her and the chicks. Both parents lose weight while dedicating most of the available food to their offspring. More about raising little owls:

"In  many ways, owls appear to be especially dedicated parents. While a female incubates, she sits on the nest for nearly twenty-four hours a day, with her head low and stomach down, keeping the eggs at the right temperature, cool in the  heat, warm through snow and cold. A brooding Snowy Owl must hold the eggs at close to 98 degrees Faahrenheit, even when the temperature plummets to -30 degrees or -40 degrees. A Great Gray Owl nesting in the sun, on the other hand may get very hot herself but will sit tight to keep her eggs and chicks from overheating... I've seen a male Great Horned Owl spread his wings over the female and chicks to shield them from the pouring rain, drenching his own feathers in the process." (p. 149-150)

 

Owls, Birders, and Scientists

A tiny Elf Owl that we saw in Arizona in 2021. Seeing an owl is usually the highlight of a day birding!
The mountains near the Mexican border are especially good for owls.

What an Owl Knows tells the stories of a number of recent owl researchers, including how they came to love owls and want to work on understanding them, and how the often came to know and observe specific, individual owls that live in captivity, as well as doing amazing work in the field, such as climbing tall trees to see owl nests. The researchers are very dedicated and resourceful people, and the details about them contribute to the very enjoyable experience of reading the book.

Owls are very intelligent, and don't like captivity or too many demands from humans. Usually, captive owls studied by the researchers were victims of some accident that made them unable to live in the wild or to be rehabilitated and re-wilded. In the US, owls are not allowed as pets, but must be in an approved situation. In other countries owls are captured and sold, and the result is sad for them. 

The intelligence of owls is one of the major themes of the book. Their mental acuity results from the many adaptations that the owl family had undergone in its millions of years of evolution -- another interesting topic that the author covers. For one example, I was fascinated by the chapter on how owls raise their chicks, which differs a bit among owl species but is very interesting in all that were explained. 

The illustrations in What the Owl Knows are wonderful.
I was fascinated by this one showing a captive Great Horned Owl known as Papa G'Ho.
In the book, the reproductions are in black & white, but I found this color reproduction online. (source)

Coming soon: I'm working on a blog post about owls in art works throughout the ages, based on the references in What an Owl Knows. And now for a completely different book!

Venice in a Mystery

Here's a complete contrast to a serious though readable book of natural history:

Donna Leon’s police procedural Falling in Love (published 2015) is more of a psychological thriller than a more usual detective story. It’s quite suspenseful, but I won't give away any of the plot. I found many of the features that one expects to find in the series about Inspector Brunetti in Venice, which now includes over 30 novels, about which I have often written. 

In the police department, the bosses are obnoxious as always. The larger-than-life secretary, the beautiful and gorgeously dressed Signorina Elettra, constantly acquires more and more devious ways to find information. She can ferret out any detail about powerful executives and officials, anything about people's public and private lives and family dramas, hidden evidence of past crimes, contents of secret government documents, incriminating facts from police records, suggestive transactions in confidential bank documents — whatever Brunetti and his colleagues need for their investigations.  

Brunetti’s children are permanent adolescents, as they have been since the first books in the 1990s. And Brunetti adores his wife Paola, a literature professor. As always, she is very literary, always reading:

‘Am I taking you away from anything important?’ he asked with a glance at the book she had abandoned.

‘Truth, beauty, elegant prose, lacerating psychological penetration, thrilling dialog,’ she listed. 

‘Just can’t stay away from Agatha Christie, can you?’ Brunetti said. (p. 94)

Also memorable and famous in the Brunetti books are the beautiful lunches and dinners that Paola cooks, or that are served at Paola’s very rich and aristocratic parents’ house. There aren’t many such meals in Falling in Love, but those that appear are very appealing. A lunch:

“The family chattered around him quite happily, distracted from his silence first by lentils with hot salami and candied currants, and then by veal roll filled with sweet sausage. Even though Brunetti especially loved the lentils, he did little more than tell Paola they were wonderful before lapsing back into consideration of [the case]…. He ate his crème caramel and for once did not ask for more.” (p. 172)

In sum, it’s a satisfying read, perhaps one of the better examples in the series, of which I’ve read quite a few but not all of them. 

Reviews © 2023 mae sander

Donna Leon’s Brunetti

Commissario Guido Brunetti finds that nothing is as he perceives it, all things are falsified. What’s more, he and his colleagues are constantly being watched, so they must create indirect ways — false ways — to communicate with one another. In Give unto Others, which is book 31 of the series by Donna Leon, Brunetti’s job is even more depressing than he found it in the earlier books. 

For example, early in the book, a colleague sends Brunetti a suspicious arrest report where officers behaved dubiously. But when the colleague phones him, Brunetti can see that he’s being asked not to speak freely: the phone must be bugged.

The friend says, “‘Did you watch that film on Netflix I told you about?’ Making his voice as disgruntled as he could, Brunetti said, ‘Yeah, I watched it, but I didn’t like it very much.’ Then, as though the thought had just come to him, Brunetti explained, ‘Maybe it was the opening scene that ruined it for me: really clumsy, I thought.’ After a short pause, he added, ‘Sort of gave the whole story away.’ ‘Ah,’ Tamiello said, drawing the sound out. ‘That’s what I thought, too. But I did find some of the later scenes interesting.’ ‘Useless, Pietro. I’ve watched other films like that, and none of them has ever been any good at all after an opening scene like that. Frankly, it ruined the film for me.’” And so they go on pretending to discuss a film when they are really signaling that the arrest report is totally phony and that the officers abused an innocent man. But listening devices are everywhere, and conversations throughout the novel have to be veiled or disguised because everyone is suspect. (p 70)

Brunetti is so depressed that for the first time ever, says his beautiful and beloved wife Paola, he doesn’t respond when she asks him what he wants for dinner, but says she should cook anything she wants. She answers by saying: “In all these years, this is the first time I’ve known you – when given the chance to choose what to have for dinner – to decline to do so.” All these meals that have been so lovingly described in the earlier books! (p. 201)

Though earlier Brunetti had enjoyed a meal of the type that appears so often in the series: “a risotto with radicchio di Treviso he’d been requesting for days, both delighted and satisfied him. Paola placed a large platter of cheese on the table after it, explaining that she’d been delayed after her morning class and had only had time to get this on the way home.” (p. 67)

The realities of life in Venice are even more difficult after the pandemic has swept through Italy. Friendly gestures — a touch on the arm, shaking hands, a pat on a shoulder — not acceptable in post-covid life. The mask is a Venetian trademark; that is, the artistic masks related to the famous carnival celebration, and sold to tourists in shops throughout the city. But now. Masks… another thing entirely. Yes, they protect from germs, but there's much more going on with masks. Throughout the first thirty books of Donna Leon’s series, more and more normal life in Venice has been pushed aside by tourist traps — grocery stores, local coffee shops, travel agents, and sellers of everyday clothing or kitchen tools have been driven out of business, replaced by shops selling the artistic masks that the tourists want. But now, after the pandemic, these shops are all dark, with remaining goods left helter-skelter.

Well, I haven't even mentioned the plot of this novel, and it's really a very good one, involving Brunetti and a couple of colleagues. Again we meet the increasingly remarkable Signorina Elettra who can get any information that exists anywhere in Italy, though she's not as critical in this novel as in some of the earlier ones. Together, Brunetti and these colleagues undertake to do some unofficial sleuthing for an old friend of his. I'll just say that I really enjoyed the clever way that Donna Leon unfolds what's happening, and how she shows what Brunetti learns from his activities. The strong theme of nothing being what it appears to be is beautifully developed in this novel -- it's a bit unusual compared to the earlier novels in the series, which is amazing.

Review © 2022 mae sander.

 

Brunetti Again

A common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus. (Wikipedia)

“The first time you hear a cuckoo in springtime, you have to see how much money you have in your pockets. And the more you have, the more money you’ll get during the year.” (Donna Leon, The Waters of Eternal Youth. p. 290)

I enjoyed this bit of Venetian bird folklore in the midst of a murder investigation by Inspector Brunetti of the Venice police. Author Donna Leon’s usual depiction of local color includes family meals cooked by Brunetti’s wife, coffee and wine in cafés with witnesses and fellow police, the regular flooding of the streets of Venice, the declining quality of life for the local inhabitants, corruption and incompetence in the city and police administrations, Brunetti's wife's aristocratic family, and the clever machinations of police secretary Signorina Elettra who is a well-connected computer genius able to find out anything about anyone (unofficially, of course). This book includes all of these topics, some more fully explored than others. More important: this novel has a good solid mystery for Brunetti and his colleagues to solve, and a nice tight plot that keeps one's attention.

Brunetti has now appeared in over 30 detective novels by Donna Leon. The Waters of Eternal Youth was number 26, published in 2016. The first in the series appeared in 1992, with a new one more or less every year since then, including one that will appear in just a few weeks from now. I’ve read many of  them, and written blog posts on several of them.

My introduction to Donna Leon was her cookbook.
Here it is in 2010 with my original kindle on which
I read some of her novels for the first time.

One element of Donna Leon's books is the portrayal of Brunetti's children, who have remained as adolescents throughout the series, though their opinions and the electronic equipment they use (like phones) keeps up with the time when the book is written – while Brunetti can't master most technology. The first victim in The Waters of Eternal Youth is a young woman who suffered a near-drowning 15 years earlier, and was left with the mental age of a child. Brunetti is charged with finding out what really caused her to fall into the canal. In contrast to the victim's permanent childishness while her body ages, Brunetti and his family can spend 30 years without aging in the least ... that's definitely a mystery with the resolution left up to the reader. I've decided that I don't mind, they can stay frozen that way as long as Donna Leon keeps writing good suspenseful tales. I just wish she would go back to the detailed and luscious descriptions of food that were so wonderful in the earlier books, but her enthusiasm seems to have faded.

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.

Summer Mystery Reading

"After all, much of what was being said was lies, or at least evasions and interpretations. The business of the law was not the discovery of the truth, anyway, but the imposition of the power of the state upon its citizens." -- Donna Leon. A Question of Belief, p. 173

Throughout the Inspector Brunetti series, one theme is always the corruption and ineffectiveness of the government, both in Venice and in Italy in general. Brunetti's thoughts vary but he usually feels crushed by the impossibility of actual justice. However, he keeps on finding who is guilty in the many acts of criminal and antisocial behavior that he's forced to investigate. And meanwhile, he stops for coffee, little sandwiches called tramezzini, and the delicious Venetian cuisine made by his wife Paola.

In A Question of Belief, it's brutally hot summer in a Venice with almost no air conditioning, and Brunetti hopes to escape to the cool mountains. However, a murder interrupts the train voyage to his vacation, while Paola and his children continue to their destination. Thus he's on his own for food much of the time. Paola only makes one meal for him, and it sounds great: "prosciutto and figs and then pasta with fresh peppers and shrimp." (p. 65). 

Even the take-out pizza Brunetti gets while she is gone sounds pretty good -- "pizza with hot sausage, ruccola, hot pepper, onion and artichokes." He took it home "and sat on the terrace and ate it while drinking two beers and reading Tacitus, the bleakness of whose vision of politics was the only thing he could tolerate in his current state." (p. 201).  

Brunetti mysteries make good summer reading, though it's quite cool and pleasant here in Michigan this week. The descriptions of the sweltering heat in Venice made me feel hot anyway. 

My other summer reading has been some historical fiction by Sujata Massey: several stories collected under the title India Gray.  I admire this author's ability to create vivid characters in very remote conditions. Here, the character Perveen Mistry makes her first appearance as a student at Oxford just after World War I. She's called on to find a missing person, and enlists the support of her friend Alice, who also later appears in the other books in the series that are mainly set in India.

Another story in the collection is set in the 1920s during the British occupation of India, this one about an Ayah who cares for British children and contrasts their life with the painful plight of her own family. A story set during the end of World War II sees the situation from the point of view of an Anglo-Indian woman married to a British agent; it highlights the motives of the Indians who went over to the Japanese side because they thought it would hasten the liberation of India. Finally a very short story is a kind of fantasy about a very young woman who finds a way to defeat a tyrannical Taliban war lord.

I enjoyed these stories, especially the character Perveen Mistry's view of food in Oxford such as "the almond and jam confection known as a Bakewell tart" and "a large pink-and-white-checked Battenberg cake, as well as a similarly sized Victoria sponge," (p. 31, 34) There's also "mulligatawny, the uniquely British concoction of chicken, flour, apples and curry powder," which she liked "better than the mutton soup that was served at least once a week." (pp. 51-52). 

The stories in India Gray presented a little bit of history of several places from a point of view that I have never really thought about, especially the view of the colonial British from the point of view of Indian people. The stories aren't just local color, though, they are well-plotted and the characters are developed in an interesting way. I think I'll be continuing with more Sujata Massey's books, of which I've read several before.

Review © 2021 mae sander.

Commissario Brunetti Ruminates

The most recent book about Venetian police officer Guido Brunetti, Transient Desires by Donna Leon, was published in March, 2021. Just as the pandemic was starting in March, 2020, I wrote up an earlier Brunetti novel and said "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." (here) This newest in the series covers many problems of life in Venice -- but no indication of the pandemic yet. 

Transient Desires seems much more contemplative than many of the earlier novels, published between 1992 and last year. In it, Brunetti encounters a number of families, with a variety of relationships among the family members. He constantly attempts to grasp the affections, obligations, and conflicts within them. Although there is some dramatic and risky action in the book, much of Brunetti's energy is dedicated to his efforts to learn how family connections drive some of the despicable criminal actions he is looking for.

Family bonds drive not only the motives of suspected criminals in Brunetti's investigation, but also he must sort out the influence of family ties among government officials to understand how to trust them. He even needs insight into the way that his fellow police officers use family connections to obtain information about the people they are investigating. As Brunetti encounters difficult relationships between generations in these families, he compares them to his own relationship to his two children, a boy who is a student at the local university, and a girl who seems to be in secondary school.*

While most of the books in the series have a great deal of detail about Paola, Brunetti's wife, and about her parents, there is less here about her in this novel, and only the briefest mention of her family: Brunetti is completely absorbed by trying to understand the criminals in the investigation, which is necessary for figuring out what their criminal activity is and how to catch them in the act. When he does relate to his children he is frequently either absorbed in thinking of the suspected crime or is comparing them to the intergenerational connections in his professional activities.

Donna Leon's writings are famous for their detailed descriptions of Venetian cuisine and Paola's wonderful cooking. Like many readers I look forward to imagining the flavor of the wonderful and exotic dishes she cooks for Brunetti. Although a few menus are mentioned in Transient Desires, they are different from the long and loving food descriptions of the earlier books. 

Near the very beginning of the book there's a food-related hint of how Brunetti views the changes that are happening to his native Venice, which later result in the crime he investigates. The first food mentioned in the book is a tramezzini, a type of simple sandwich served in a cafe, not a representative of high cuisine:

"He looked into the glass case filled with tramezzini: they’d been made by Sergio [the owner], who still cut them into triangles, while Bamba [the Senagalese employee] preferred rectangles. Maybe an egg and tomato? Bamba returned and gave a brisk swipe at the counter in front of Brunetti." 

Later, he orders one of these tramezzini but as he eats, he's lost in thought about the state of the world shown by what he's eating: 

"This was indeed fuel, not food: they were good tramezzini, but that did not alter the fact that they were tramezzini, not lunch. And what would follow if we slowly came to accept having a sandwich for lunch?" (p. 15). 

And still later: 

"As a form of penance, Brunetti chose to have two tramezzini in one of the bars lined up on the Riva degli Schiavoni; he could bring himself to eat only a bite of each, and could not drink the wine." (p. 42). 

Delicious food doesn't distract Brunetti from his preoccupation with the ongoing investigation and its emotionally entangled protagonists. Here's an example where the food is only briefly described, and serves to illuminate the interaction of Brunetti with Paola, his daughter Chiara and his son Raffi:

"Paola had decided to roast a chicken after filling it with a combination of quinoa, rosemary, and thyme. She explained to them that she’d stolen the herbs from the garden of a colleague who had invited her to pick up a book after class. 

"‘Stolen’?’ Chiara inquired. Paola glanced across at her daughter. ‘The plants were sitting there, overgrown, neglected, dry – one might even say abandoned – so all I did was trim them. It was an act of liberation.’

"‘You didn’t ask her?’ Chiara insisted. ‘I didn’t notice them until I was leaving,’ Paola said in a less patient voice. 

"Chiara, who took a dim view of the eating of meat, took an even dimmer view, it seemed, of the justification of crime. ‘If she’d stopped wearing a bracelet, and you liked it, would you feel the same about “liberating” that?’ 

"Raffi, who had been following the conversation, smiled, then returned his attention to his chicken leg before his mother could see his expression." (p. 76)

At a later meal, his worries about his case even prevent him from enjoying Paola's cooking or his children's presence:

"Dinner, which Paola and Chiara were just putting on the table when he got home, failed to lift Brunetti’s spirits. There was pumpkin soup, which he loved, and then grilled branzino, but even this historically magic combination did not work its spell, and he sat, listening to what was being said but not engaging in the conversation. Chiara was complaining about a new rule the school was trying to impose upon the students..." (p. 154). 

Another time Paola cooks "a risotto with cauliflower and quick-fried veal cutlets, two of his favourites, but he barely finished the risotto and refused her offer of a second cutlet. Nor did he drink a glass of wine, as was his habit at lunch." (p. 101). The loving detail with which Leon has described Paola's cooking in past books just isn't here this time.

While I don't think I have read all 30 of Donna Leon's Venetian detective novels, I've enjoyed quite a few of them. I found this one to have a different vibe from the earlier ones I've read. The sadness for the lost ambience of Venice under the onslaught of huge numbers of tourists and the damage caused by repeated floods is even more depressing than in earlier books. Several times Brunetti discovers that a favorite shop or establishment has closed because the owner can no longer afford the cost of doing business, so it will be replaced by something catering to cruise ship tourists -- he seems to be getting much sadder about this decline. I said much the same thing in 2020, but it's getting more pressing. I guess that in a future book, we might still find out how Brunetti and his colleagues and family survive the pandemic.

*ASIDE: I’ve commented on how Brunetti's two children have aged very little if at all since the first volume of the series, despite the constant introduction of new technology, which is even called out in the novel — for example, he observes the replacement of  "telefonini: the little Nokia ones, before everyone got an iPhone. This was years ago, when people still used them." In earlier books, the telephonini were the phones he and his kids used. (p. 130). 

Review © 2021 mae sander.

Stargazer

Stargazer, published April 13

Stargazer by Anne Hillerman is the twenty-fourth police procedural novel set on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico and the surrounding area. It features detectives Bernadette (Bernie) Manuelito and Joe Leaphorn, familiar from the earlier novels.

Beyond the territory of the reservation, much of Stargazer takes place in the vicinity of the not-fictitious Very Large Array radio-telescope shown on the map above in relation to the reservation. I enjoyed the book's descriptions of the scenery and the local ambience, though I found the plot of the book to be a little thin and not as inventive as some of the earlier ones.

Comfort food as always plays a big role in this series: I always look for food in detective novels. Here, it definitely  characterizes the detectives and their friends, as well as suggesting the progress in time of the investigations. Leaphorn definitely likes to eat: in one scene, he warms up some lasagne and inhales "the warm spicy aroma of tomato sauce, meat, cheese, and oregano." 

Leaphorn's friend and housemate Louisa makes a salad to go with the lasagna: "... to fresh spinach, she’d added onions, red and green peppers, tomatoes, and something white, crisp, and slightly sweet he hadn’t tried before," which turns out to be  jicama. (pp. 155-156). Another time: an old friend of Leaphorn's says he "can make a spaghetti sauce so good you’d think it came from a jar.” (p. 31).

Bernie is a nurturer, both of her husband Jim Chee (who plays a rather small role in solving the mystery at the heart of this novel) and of her mother and sister. At one point, she makes soup to try to get her mother, who has problems with eating, to take some nutrition. Bernie herself is a picky eater. In one scene, at a diner, she takes the lettuce and tomato off of her burger, something we've seen her do in earlier novels. She's doubtful about her colleague's choice of "a casual place that specialized in New Mexican food—red and green chile, posole, flan, sopaipillas, even tender tortillas made with blue corn." The colleague reassures her: “They do great rellenos with fresh green chile this time of year. I think you’ll love their specials, but if not, they have regular American food, too.” (p. 230). 

When offered take-out Chinese food, she's really doubtful, and relieved when she finds "small meaty ribs arranged on a pile of fluffy white rice. No odd green things. No mystery sauce." (p. 163). Above all, throughout Stargazer Bernie is trying to reduce her consumption of Coke, which she really loves. A drink of ice water just doesn't do it for her.

These habits of the detectives have appeared often since the original series author Tony Hillerman began writing about policemen Joe Leaphorn in 1970; he subsequently introduced Jim Chee and then Bernie, his younger colleagues. Since Hillerman's death in 2008, his daughter Anne Hillerman has added several novels to the series. I've enjoyed them all, though I admit some of the earlier ones are better.

The Navajo detectives never seem to get much older, although each novel is set in the present time that it was being written -- descriptions of cars, iPhones, and the like keep up with the times. Leaphorn was around 40 in the first book, so now he must be around 90. His ability to speak English has been impaired by having been shot in the head a few books ago -- leading Hillerman to render his speech in very annoying broken English, which I find mildly offensive. He's still fluent in Navajo, can write good English, and seems mentally very sharp, so he's called as a consultant in on just about every case, including the one in Stargazer. 

Bernie Manuelito is aging too: her college roommate who has a major role in Stargazer has a 19-year-old son who was born after their college days. So Bernie must be getting close to 40, despite being viewed as quite young and still deciding when to start a family with Jim Chee. I'm always fascinated by the aging of detectives in long-running series. More examples: Agatha Christie introduced Hercule Poirot in 1920, when he was already retired, and he continued detecting until his last book in 1975. Maybe he was 110 years old? Maybe time stood still? Miss Marple, Christie's elderly spinster detective, first appeared in a story in 1927, and continued to be an aging spinster until 1976. Donna Leon's Venetian detective, Inspector Brunetti, first appeared in 1992, with 24 novels in the series. Brunetti's children were teenagers in the first book. As far as I know they have continued to be teenagers. Time doesn't stand still as technology advances throughout the books. I love them all, and these little things don't bother me, just pique my curiosity.

The champion of long-lived detectives, I think, is Captain Largo of the Hillerman books. In 1970, he was already the boss of the Navajo police station where Leaphorn worked until his retirement (in the book published in 1996). He's still there, the boss of Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito in Stargazer. Largo's possible retirement is a topic of discussion among the policemen in Stargazer. According to one of the other policemen: “He was there when Ship Rock landed and our relatives climbed off and started planning for the first Navajo Fair.” (p. 179).

                                                             Blog post © 2021 mae sander.

Sequels

Recently, I've been reading sequels from a variety of mystery authors. Writing a full review post of every sequel seems a bit redundant, but here's a quick report on some recent ones. As I often do, I'm notably interested in the way these authors use food to tell their stories.

Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura

The second in the Rei Shimura series is titled Zen Attitude (published in 1997). I enjoyed it very much, for its many Japanese scenes set in several Japanese cities. Rei Shimura, the amateur detective who just happens to be around when murderers are busy, has become an antique dealer, with customers whom she must handle with Japanese tact despite her American upbringing. There's plenty of suspenseful detecting and escapes from dangers, as one would expect.

I particularly enjoyed references to special Japanese food and drink; for example, a woman customer asked:

"You drink mugi-cha, don’t you?” My hostess poured cool barley tea for me into a dark earthen-ware cup. (p. 41). 

Or another occasion when she slept at a friend's house:

"She showed me a thermos of green tea and a tiered basket filled with pickled vegetables and onigiri, fresh rice balls stuffed with pickled plums that I loved. I must have smelled them when she walked in and woke me up." (p. 166). 

If anything, I liked the second in the series better than the first one. I'm surely expecting to read more! 

Cara Black's Aimee Leduc

Black's Murder in Belleville is the second detective tale in the Aimee Leduc series (published in 2000). It's every bit as over-the-top violent and exciting as the first in the series, maybe more so. By the end of the first chapter, Aimee has been a witness to a fatal car bombing, has picked up the survivor (a friend who had phoned her for help), stolen a moped, dragged her injured friend onto the moped, and avoided an unknown but clearly evil-intending pursuer. She rides the moped down the steps of a Metro station, with her friend somehow on her back, avoids the enemy, and gets away. That's just the first chapter. Oh, yes, she also is always dressed perfectly for every scene. 

Not much more about this that I would want to say. Lots of bad guys! Really bad ones! Will I read another? Probably. Will I read all 20 of them? Probably not.

Tana French's Dublin Murder Detectives

The Secret Place (published 2014) is very readable despite its substantial length. It's well-crafted: the major action in the book, from the start of a new clue in a cold case until full explanation, takes place in less than 24 hours. Alternate chapters describe the events leading up to the murder that's under investigation. The scene is in a girls' school in Dublin, which is very well portrayed, although I think some of the teenage slang dialog may be a little forced and too much like TV.

I enjoyed the way that food is used to show emotional states, especially the food in the school dining room and the snacks the girls buy at a mall near the school. For example:

"Becca digs her heels into the ground, stares at her beef casserole and refuses to get pulled in. If they want to act like idiots, that’s their problem; they can fix it themselves."(p. 427). 

"A heavy girl with her back to me looked like she was lashing into her food, but over her shoulder I caught a full plate of chicken pie chopped into tiny perfect squares, getting tinier with each vicious cut." (pp. 232-233).  

Each of French's novels introduces a new detective in the Dublin police, except for The Witch Elm, which has an amateur detective. I have liked them all.

More Sequels

Quite a few other series that I've read in the past have new books available, such as the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny and the Inspector Brunetti series by Donna Leon. I think I've missed several Inspector Montalbano novels in the series by Andrea Camilleri, who died last year but I think left some unpublished work. And I did recently write a full post on the recent sequel in the Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacot series by J.K.Rowling. As there are several authors that I intend to try for the first time as well, I guess I'll have plenty to do!

Review © 2020 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

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.

If you read this at another site, it's been pirated.

A Mural That Isn't There

The Madonna of the Victories by Andrea Mantegna (1496)
Oil & Tempera on Canvas, Louvre Museum, Paris.

The history of this stunning painting begins with a mural on the wall of a house in Mantua, Italy, which depicted the Madonna with saints. In around 1495, a Jewish banker named Daniele Norsa purchased this house, and received official permission from Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, to remove the mural. Bad idea! The populace reacted violently, stirred up by a mystic priest who predicted the destruction of Norsa's house and replacement of it with a chapel and a magnificent painting: a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Although the general population of Italy at the time was very anti-Jewish, families like the Norsa family were often invited by the rulers to provide financial services, which were off-limits to Christians because any loans at interest were classified as usury. The profits accrued from Jewish banking were heavily taxed by the rulers, who managed to profit from "usury" even if they couldn't practice it. This had the additional benefit of directing hostility on the part of debtors towards the Jews, not towards the rulers whose profitable role was often quite hidden.

Jewish Italians had little choice but to be bankers. They were prohibited from most other professions and occupations, and had no civil rights, though their ancestors had lived in Italy since Roman times. Essentially, they had to bribe the rulers for the right to live and work in their territory; they were always at the mercy of the rulers and sometimes of the mob. The Norsa family had lived in Mantua for generations, and mostly had been protected by the Gonzaga family; in fact Isabella d'Este, the Marquess of Mantua, had tried to avoid anti-Jewish violence somewhat earlier when she was left in charge during one of her husband's absences.

Protests against Norsa's removal of the mural became violent, and Gonzaga was obliged to react. He had recently been in service to Venice as a condottiere, or hired general, in one of the numerous wars that were taking place in Italy at the time. Chronically short of money, he was looking for a way to finance a memorial to his great victory at the battle of Fornovo: just what the mystic, Girolamo Redini, predicted. The painter Mantegna was in Gonzaga's service, and Gonzaga wanted him to create a great painting. A chapel -- Santa Maria della Victoria -- would be built to commemorate his accomplishment, with Redini's dream painting in the place of honor. If you look at the painting, above, you can see a portrait of Gonzaga in armor, kneeling before the Madonna's throne, along with a wealth of symbols from Renaissance religious iconography (more at this blog post).

Although Norsa had already promised to commission a replacement mural on the wall of his house, this wasn't enough. The house was razed to make room for the chapel, and Norsa's assets were confiscated to pay for both chapel and painting.

I have been fascinated by Mantegna and by this history of the mural that isn't there for a long time. In 1998, I visited Mantua trying to learn more about the history of the Norsa family. We found the chapel, but it was closed and evidently rather run down and in need of maintenance. A web search today indicates that it's been restored and is now open to tourism.

Here are some photos that we took in Mantua:

Mantua, Chapel of the Victories, 1496, on the site of the Norsa home.
Mantegna's painting was in the place of honor until Napoleon conquered
Italy and took it for the Louvre.

Another Madonna of the Victories by an unknown painter.
At the bottom are portraits of the Norsa family.
This painting hangs in the Basilica of Mantua.

Portraits of the Norsa Family. The men are wearing the Jewish badge. In Renaissance Italy, the badge was a circle. 

The synagogue of Mantua.

Notes:

• Information about the Madonna of the Victories is available in the book Andrea Mantegna and the Italian Renaissance by Joseph Manca. (2015)
• For more about the Norsa family see this page of Jewish Virtual Library: Norzi.