'Most tourists spend the major part of their time in that triangle,' she says. Leon describes a 'Bermuda Triangle' of San Marco-Accademia-Rialto. Leon agrees with Henry James' observation more than a century ago that 'in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.' The other Venice is filled with the booming voices of tour guides with microphones and attracts up to 20 million tourists a year. One has quiet campielli (squares) and barges that deliver fruits and vegetables that Venice belongs to Brunetti and its 60,000 other residents. Leon stresses there are two separate Venices. There's even a German Commissario Brunetti TV series. Translated into 20 languages, her books are international best-sellers. She sought refuge in the city of canals and bridges after having taught English literature in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. He knows who to ask about anyone in the city. 'His family's been here ever since ever since ever since ever.

'He has a kind of love-irritation relationship with the city,' Leon says of her main character. Happily married to a university professor of English literature (who is also a great chef), the fictional police detective is an intellectual and reflective man who visits museums and buys out-of-print books. The narrow alleys and wide squares of the Cannaregio district, where Leon lives, are also the world of Commissario Guido Brunetti. 'These were the hours when, for Brunetti, the city became most beautiful, just as they were the same hours when he, Venetian to the bone, sensed some of her past glory.' close by, the bells of the church chimed four in the morning.' The body of the second victim 'floated face down in the murky water of the canal. The first victim was in the dressing room of the opera house, La Fenice. In Leon's Venice, the violence usually occurs at dawn. The story is part of a series, Crime in the City, about crime novelists and the places they and their characters inhabit.įifteen years ago - a decade after she made Venice her home - Donna Leon began killing people. Leon recently gave a visiting reporter a tour of her Venice. The sinking Renaissance jewel is the backdrop of her 'Commissario Brunetti' detective stories.

One writer who has settled in 'the city on stilts' is the American author Donna Leon. Venice is a seductive city that has bewitched artists from all over the world.

Novel death in venice