This copy was kindly sent by NetGalley.
Publication date: April 17, 2012.
This is the first book I read by Donna Leon and I really liked it.
The plot is about a murder investigation when the body of a man is found in a canal without any kind of identification.
Commissario Brunetti is in charge of this crime and the police takes at least two days in order to find the true identify of the unknown victim since nobody claims for his disappearance even if he has a very rare disease, the Marlung disease.
After have found his true identity, the pace of the narrative accelerates. The reader is wrong to think that it is a simple case of a murder investigation because other developments of the story emerge as the search for the killers deepens.
I must confess that I was reluctant to read books of this author because I thought it was only the most best-selling author not realizing that it was more a master of crime fiction.
A very interesting aspect of this book and the author portrays the Commissioner Brunetti as a normal human being and not as a detective gifted with supernatural powers to solve a murder case.
Another very interesting aspect of this book is that the author throughout the narrative portraying aspects of contemporary daily life in Venice reporting, for example, how an old woman complains of the unwanted presence of tourists in her city but does not behave in a civilized way in this regard.
