Dressed for Death

By: Donna Leon

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Commissario Guido Brunetti's hopes for 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 completely unrecognizable. Brunetti searches Venice for someone who can identify the corpse but is met with a wall of silence. He then receives a telephone call from a contact who promises some tantalizing information. And before night is out, Brunetti is confronting yet another appalling, and apparently senseless, death.

©1994 Donna Leon (P)2009 BBC Audio

Great book

This is one of the best crime mysteries I have discovered in a long time. I am so glad there are a lot more books I had that I can read and listen to! The writing and sense of place are excellent and the story keeps drawing you in.

Boring

Not much action. Mostly dialogue. If you speak Italian, there are a few little inside jokes that will make you chuckle. But, other than that I lost interest and entire chapters went by before I realized I wasn’t even paying attention.

Venice!

another terrific visit with the Brunetti"s in Venice. one good location based tale after another. reader on the money.

Commissioner Brunetti snares another killer!

Love the understated perseverance of our hero Brunetti as he navigates the lace like web of clues!

Meh!

Donna Leon's series has been so highly recommended by so many people for so long that I finally downloaded this book. I found the first half to be very slow-moving, as Leon carefully seeded her plot with clues, red herrings and domestic details. The villains were almost immediately identified, and painted with a very broad brush; the murder "twist" was quickly obvious; the observations on Venetian life only moderately interesting. Then the second half just kind of stumbled to a conclusion. Leon seems very impressed with the decency of her decent characters, which gives the book an odd air of self-satisfaction.

But perhaps it's the narration I found the most off-putting. The narrator is American, so the descriptive bits feel quite transparent to this listener. But, if every single one of your characters is Italian, why adopt an Italian accent in the dialogue? It's not as if we need to distinguish among nationalities (as we did in Neal Stephenson's "Reamde", for instance, or Jess Walter's "Beautiful Ruins"). It puts an unnecessary distance between the listener and the characters, as if they are "colorful characters" rather than people.

Due diligence

Venice Italy, law-enforcement, murder-investigation

This is my first foray into the world of Commissario Brunetti but it certainly won't be the last! The only difference in the police work from other law enforcement areas it that it is all by water and not by roadways. Otherwise, policework is much the same everywhere and this book is a fine example of due diligence in a murky social sphere. Well written and I loved it!
David Colacci has the perfect delivery

Loved It!

As always, Leone wrote a thought-provoking novel, and Colacci provided us with a captivating reading!

This author is a genius!

Besides crafting intricate murder mysteries, and organically developing a number of characters and their relationships, Donna Leon communicates many truths about society and insights about human nature that raise these books above the level of simply recreational fiction.

Thoroughly enjoyed

Very consumable. Involving without being too sad, scary or overly sordid. Detective is admirable without being Superman, or on the other end of things, neurotic and tortured. Enjoying the series so far.

This is my favorite in the series so far

I havent read the whole series, nor have I read them in order, but this one definitely kept my attention better than the others I have heard.
Commissario Guido is called to a crime scene where the body of what appears to be a transvestite prostitute. However, something doesn't seem quite right to the Commissario and he refuses to just write the crime off because of the type of victim. Besides, the corpse has a body much like Guido's own and he doubts this is a figure people would pay for.
From the undercover world of the gay and transvestite scene in Venice to the seedy and even more covert world of Italian finance Guido must ferret out the truth while staying alive and thwarting very powerful men.
Honestly, the ways in which the characters have to confront ideas of italian masculinity in this maybe what amused me the most. However, it does have a good amount of action as well.