- published 2013 Atlantic Monthly Press
- ISBN 978-0-8021-2101-1
- 276 pages
- #22 in the Brunetti series
In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor shop-keeping violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaner has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.
Brunetti begins to investigate the death and is surprised when he finds nothing on the man: no birth certificate, no passport, no driver’s license, no credit cards. As far as the Italian government is concerned, he never existed. Stranger still, the dead man’s mother refuses to speak to the police, and assures Brunetti that her son’s identification papers were stolen in a burglary. As secrets unravel, Brunetti suspects that the Lembos, an aristocratic family, might be somehow connected to the death. But why would anyone want this sweet, simple-minded man dead?
My Take
I've followed the novels of Donna Leon closely over the last two decades, but I don't think any of them have ever left me with such a feeling of sadness that THE GOLDEN EGG has.
Set in Venice, the novels have come to explore the issues of living in modern day Venice against the background of a crime, often a murder. Some of those issues get passing mention in this novel such as corruption amongst city officials and the effects of cheap imports on the Venetian economy.
At the beginning of this novel we are not sure whether a murder has taken place.What concerns Brunetti is that there are no state records of this man despite his estimated age of over forty years. He is identified by a name on a piece of paper in his pocket, in conjunction with the record of where the ambulance was called to collect his body.
You'll have to ask yourself at the end of reading this novel whether a crime has been committed. What has happened certainly leaves Brunetti feeling that there should be some way of wreaking retribution.
My rating: 4.5
I've also reviewed
ABOUT FACE
THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
4.4, A QUESTION OF BELIEF
4.5, BEASTLY THINGS
4.4, QUIETLY IN THEIR SLEEP
3.9, THE JEWELS OF PARADISE
4.8, DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
4.6, DEATH IN A STRANGE COUNTRY
4.7, BY ITS COVER
Guido Brunetti (according to Fantastic Fiction)
1. Death At La Fenice (1992)
2. Death in a Strange Country (1993)
3. The Anonymous Venetian (1994)
aka Dressed for Death
4. A Venetian Reckoning (1995)
aka Death And Judgment
5. Acqua Alta (1996)
aka Death in High Water
6. The Death of Faith (1997)
aka Quietly in Their Sleep
7. A Noble Radiance (1997)
8. Fatal Remedies (1998)
9. Friends in High Places (1999)
10. A Sea of Troubles (2001)
11. Wilful Behaviour (2002)
12. Uniform Justice (2003)
13. Doctored Evidence (2004)
14. Blood from a Stone (2005)
15. Through a Glass Darkly (2006)
16. Suffer the Little Children (2007)
17. The Girl of His Dreams (2008)
18. About Face (2009)
19. A Question of Belief (2010)
20. Drawing Conclusions (2011)
21. Beastly Things (2012)
22. The Golden Egg (2013)
23. By Its Cover (2014)
24. Falling in Love (2015)
25. The Waters of Eternal Youth (2016)
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