Friends in High Places | Donna Leon | Among the Best in the Brunetti Series

Friends in High Places | Donna Leon | "High Places" deserves high praise

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Friends in High Pl...

	Friends in High Places Donna Leon Penguin (Non-Classics), 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The winner of the Crime Writers Association Macallan Silver Dagger?available for the first time in the United States

Donna Leon?s sophisticated Commissario Brunetti series has won her legions of fans over the years. In Friends in High Places, Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the building of Brunetti?s apartment years before. What began as a red tape headache ends in murder when the bureaucrat is found dead after a mysterious fall from a scaffold. Brunetti starts an investigation that will take him into unfamiliar and dangerous areas of Venetian life, and will reveal, once again, what a difference it makes to have friends in high places.

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Among the Best in the Brunetti Series

Friends in High Places is the 9th in Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series of murder mystery / police procedurals set in Venice. The book appears to be out of print in the U.S., but is readily available in its British edition via several Amazon merchants.

As with most of the Brunetti series, the story has much to do with government corruption. In this case the means of corruption is Venetian real estate, and the outcome is murder. There is also a significant drug connection, leading to the death of one addict, and indirectly leading to the deaths of 2 others.

This is one of the best in the Brunetti series, and the series is among the best I've read. Leon has great sympathy for the crime- and corruption victims, as well as for those honest policemen who investigate the crimes. The characters in this novel, and in the series generally, are not just believable, but fully fleshed-out, unlike the stick-figures in many of the crime novels I've been reading lately.

There are no neat endings in any of the Brunetti novels. Justice is always thwarted, at least to some extent. Brunetti always solves the case, but the people in 'high places' always win in the end. Such is the case in this novel as well, though in this case Brunetti finds a way to make Italian reality work for rather than against justice.

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"High Places" deserves high praise

First sentence: When the doorbell rang, Brunetti lay supine on the sofa in his living room, a book propped open on his stomach.

Commissario Guido Brunetti's lazy Saturday is interrupted by a visit from Franco Rossi of the Ufficio Catasto. There is a question about the legality of Guido's apartment. Rossi's fear of heights is apparent when Guido tries to take him out to the terrace so it makes no sense when Guido learns Rossi has died after falling from a scaffold.

Brunetti's case goes beyond the murder into moneylenders, drug dealers, greed and love

Brunetti is a wonderful character and very much alive for the reader. He is different from the normal protagonist in that his home life and strong relationship to his family is as much a part of the story as the crime.

Leon's writing is wonderfully poignant and descriptive whether it be to convey Brunetti's love of his city or his frustration with the corruption on which it runs. There is a wonderful line where Brunetti's points out the irony of how Italy being part of the EU is forcing Venice to be less corrupt. Her dialogue is true and audible.

Leon has created a wonderfully twisty plot with lots of different threads, although some of them where a bit hard to put together. As an American, it's not always easy to understand how things work, but the conclusion is a very satisfactory one. What I find most fascinating is the machinations Brunetti must employ to achieve justice that have nothing to do with the law.

This is another great book in an excellent series.

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Public Corruption and Personal Values

If you've liked the Guido Brunetti mysteries, you will probably feel that this is one of the best in the series.

What's it all about? Commissario Guido Brunetti meets an honest public official, and crime follows as those who cheat and admire cheaters seek to remain hidden from honest men.

If that's all this book represented, it would be but an average mystery. Ms. Donna Leon adds a more intriguing element to the story: Corrupt practices breed more corruption . . . both of the heart and of the pocket book. To make the story more effective, she places Guido and Paola Brunetti in the middle of temptations that he isn't able to resist.

In Venice, the Ufficio Catasto is in charge of approving building plans and being sure they are faithfully carried out. As in many cities, homeowners try to avoid extra taxes by keeping improvements hidden from the government. Franco Rossi arrives from the Ufficio Catasto to ask Guido if he has the plans for his apartment. Why? The Ufficio Catasto has no record of plans or permits for the apartment.

What does this mean? Guido may have to pay a large fine; he may have to make substantial changes in the apartment; or he may have to demolish the apartment. None of those choices seem attractive. What about using a little influence to avoid the problem? That temptation dangles before the Brunettis throughout the story.

But they are not the only ones who have such challenges -- Vice-Questore Patta also has the need for some help with public matters. Guido finds himself placed in the middle of that moral choice as well.

During the course of the story, Guido also learns about other unpleasant parts of the underbelly of Venice "civilization" that lurks beneath the beautiful exterior that the tourists love to admire.

It's a powerful story that will leave you seeing Venice differently than you have before.

Enjoy!

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Not Perfect Leon, But Pretty Close

This is vintage Donna Leon. Excellent descriptions of Venice...memorable characters...thoughtful insights into human qualities of honor, honesty, corruption and arrogance. My only criticism is that the ending is tepid and all issues are not fully resolved, in my opinion. Leon is very uneven as a writer. When she's off, she's terrible. When she's on, she's magnificent. In this book she comes off very close to the latter. I would say this is one of her better books.

Intelligent Mystery

Another in her series of intelligent, literate mysteries, with her protagonist Guido Brunetti and his university professor wife, Paola, and their two teenaged children. A delight. Subtle, funny, and clever.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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