So Shall You Reap

'Donna Leon provides another delectable slice of the thoughtful policeman's life at work and at home... So Shall You Reap is as witty and wise as anything Leon has written. To read her is to restore the soul.' Mark Sanderson, The Times'Like all of Leon's novels, it ultimately feels like a glorious invigorating holiday.' Daily Express---On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a garden house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s.As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signorina Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle-random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships-that appear to have little in common. Until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

Donna Leon provides another delectable slice of the thoughtful policeman's life at work and at home... So Shall You Reap is as witty and wise as anything Leon has written. To read her is to restore the soul, Like all of Leon's novels, it ultimately feels like a glorious invigorating holiday, [Leon's] success lies in the kindness and the decency of her main character as well as in the backdrop of Venice, the city that all of her books are set in, and the way she combs through its street and canals for stories of corruption and power and greed and hubris, always allowing Brunetti to sink back into the loving embrace of his family and food, Much more than a whodunnit, Donna Leon's novels appear as regularly as the season and - it really is true - they get better and better.

Donna Leon is author of the much-loved, best-selling series of novels featuring Commissario Brunetti and one of The Times' 50 Greatest Crime Writers. Widely considered one of the best detective series ever, with admirers including Ursula K. Le Guin and Antonia Fraser, the Brunetti Mysteries have won numerous awards around the world and been translated into thirty-five languages.