Willful Behavior, Donna Leon
Willful Behavior, Donna Leon
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Willful Behavior

Author: Donna Leon

Narrator: Steven Crossley

Unabridged: 9 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/03/2011

Synopsis

Mystery lovers everywhere are addicted to Donna Leon’s ever-honorable Commissario Guido Brunetti and her portrayal of Venice’s beautiful but sinister byways and canals. In Willful Behavior, Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife’s students. Intelligent and serious, Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather. Brunetti thinks little of it—until Claudia is found dead. Soon, another corpse and an extraordinary art collection lead Brunetti to long-buried secrets of Nazi collaboration and the exploitation of Italian Jews—secrets few in Italy want revealed.

About Donna Leon

American author, Donna Leon, has settled nicely into a series of crime novels set in Venice, Italy entitled, Brunettixote. The novels feature the fictional character of Commissario Guido Brunetti.

Leon was born in 1942, and eventually lived in Venice, Italy for over 30 years. She was an English literature lecturer for the University of Maryland in Europe (Italy), and worked on a military base in Italy for several years, before she became a full time writer. She moved to Zurich, Switzerland, and also had a home in a smaller Swiss village.

The novels have been translated from English into several foreign languages, but for some reason the author did not approve them being translated into Italian. German television has shown 22 Commissario Brunetti episodes that they produced for broadcast.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Blaine on December 23, 2022

Book 11 of the Commissario Brunetti series delves into the topics of wealth, honor and peripherally consumerism as Brunetti comments on how huge Americans have become, the need to drink continually as if it will bring everlasting life, etc. And set among this is the murder of a very thoughtful 18-ye......more

Goodreads review by Gisela on November 08, 2014

One of the better one of the series (although I like them all). As always the crime story is not the most interesting part about this book and like most of them the actual solving of the crime is a bit banal. It's the insight into Italy, it's culture, changing life style, politics and "system" which......more

Goodreads review by Alex is The Romance Fox on October 18, 2016

Willful Behavior, (Commissario Brunetti Series #11 by Donna Leon) takes us along with Guido Brunetti as he delves into buried secrets dating back to WW2 - Nazi collaboration, Italy's Anti -Semitic past, the exploitation of Italian Jews during that period, something that a lot of people are prepared......more

Goodreads review by Karl on June 14, 2020

Reading Donna Leon is a special treat. Her Commissario Brunetti series puts us inside the culture of Venice: travel by vaperetto, disdain of tourism, gourmet food at every meal, espresso four times per day, wine with every meal and snack, and the rampant corruption at every level of government, from......more

Goodreads review by Ruby on May 04, 2019

Like others in the Commissario Brunetti series, the murder isn't always an obvious figure. This isn't a spoiler, because there are lots of characters who are not the obvious culprits. This book describes corruption in even more detail than earlier ones, and deals with the aftermath of World War II a......more

Quotes

“Donna Leon’s novels have becomes successively more subtle, more complex and perhaps more serious, without ever losing their compelling power as narratives. This is especially true of Willful Behavior; the story is wholly engrossing.” Evening Standard (London)

“Donna Leon’s compelling series…What makes Leon’s work especially unnerving is the sense that corruption is a continuing process…This is a powerful story, brilliantly evoking Venetian atmosphere, and the characters of Brunetti and his family continue to deepen throughout the series.” Times (London)

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