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Beastly Things
- A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery, Book 21
- Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery
Non-member price: $17.97
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not the best Leon, too formulated
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Enjoyable Story
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By Its Cover, indeed, but At Her Best
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Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon, read by David Sibley. When important information is leaked from inside the Venetian Questura, Commissario Guido Brunetti is entrusted with the task of uncovering which of his colleagues is responsible. But before Brunetti can begin his investigation, he is surprised by the appearance in his office of a friend of his wife's, who is fearful that her son is using drugs. A few weeks later, Tullio Gasparini, the woman's husband, is found unconscious with a serious head injury at the foot of a bridge, and Brunetti is drawn to pursue a possible connection to the boy’s behaviour. But the truth is not straightforward.
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When an old man is found viciously murdered, a swastika carved in his chest, the obvious conclusion is that this killing must be racist. Suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, found in flagrant playing sex games surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia.
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Badly let down by narration.
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The Golden Egg
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Twenty-one years ago, when a conductor was poisoned and the Questura sent a man to investigate, readers first met Commissario Guido Brunetti. Since 1992’s Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon and her shrewd, sophisticated, and compassionate investigator have been delighting readers around the world. For her millions of fans, Leon’s novels have opened a window into the private Venice of her citizens, a world of incomparable beauty, family intimacy, shocking crime, and insidious corruption.
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dribble
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When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. ‘They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no’, Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy.
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Soundtrack
- By Denise on 23-03-2020
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The Crow Trap
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Three very different women come together at isolated Baikie’s Cottage on the North Pennines to complete an environmental survey. Rachael, the team leader, is still reeling after a double betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Anne, a botanist, sees the survey as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman hiding plenty of her own secrets.
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Enjoyable but...
- By DebManning on 16-10-2019
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Fatal Remedies
- By: Donna Leon
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- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For Commissario Guido Brunetti it began with an early morning phone call. A sudden act of vandalism had just been committed in the chill Venetian dawn, a rock thrown in anger through the window of a building in the deserted city. But soon Brunetti finds out that the perpetrator is no petty criminal intent on some annoying anonymous act. For the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene of the crime is none other than Paola Brunetti, his wife.
Publisher's Summary
When a man is found stabbed to death floating in the canal, Commissario Brunetti is convinced he recognises him from somewhere. But with no identification on the body and no reports of people missing from the Venice area, it seems as if he has appeared from nowhere, and the case is at a dead end.
It doesn't take long for Brunetti to realise why he remembers the dead man - he saw him at a demonstration a couple of years ago, where farmers were protesting about European milk quotas. But what was his involvement with the protest? And could it have anything to do with his murder?
Having nothing to go on but the distinctive shoes the man was wearing and a disease that had left his body strangely deformed, Brunetti and Inspector Vianello set out to try and discover the man's identity.
Their investigation eventually takes them to a slaughterhouse at Preganziol, on the mainland. It is there that Brunetti discovers the dead man's connection with the slaughterhouse and the world of blackmail and corruption that surrounds it. With a gripping case set before a harrowing exploration of the meat industry, Donna Leon's latest novel is a dark and compelling addition to the Brunetti series.
Critic Reviews
What listeners say about Beastly Things
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Kenneth
- 12-10-2015
Donna Leon at her very best
Beastly Things is one of Donna Leon's most accomplished books: the plot is well conceived and fascinatingly presented, her regular characters come through with a limpid humanity, the cowardly or the calculating exhibit all that their actions imply, and the closing chapter is gracious and moving. The reading by Andrew Sachs is moving beyond expectation.
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