New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press (April 2017)

First Edition. Signed.

As new in dust jacket.


Donna Leon bestselling mystery novels set in Venice have won a multitude of fans for their insider’s portrayal of La Serenissima. From the food to the culture, the details of everyday life lived amid architectural splendor are an integral part of this beloved series. But so is the suffocating corruption, the deluge of tourism, and crimes big and small. Through it all, Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti has endured. A good man who loves his family and his city, Brunetti is relentless in his pursuit of understanding and some measure of justice.

In Earthly Remains, the twenty-sixth novel in this series, Brunetti’s endurance is tested more than ever before. During an interrogation of an entitled, arrogant man suspected of giving drugs to a young girl who then died, Brunetti acts rashly, doing something he will quickly come to regret. In the fallout, he realizes that he needs a break, needs to get away from the stifling problems of his work.

When Brunetti is granted leave from the Questura, his wife Paola ships him off to a villa owned by a wealthy relative on Sant’Erasmo, one of the largest islands in the laguna. There he intends to pass his days rowing, and his nights reading Pliny’s Natural History, and the recuperative stay goes according to plan until a new friend, the caretaker of the house on Sant’Erasmo, goes missing following a sudden storm. Now, Brunetti feels compelled to investigate, to try to better understand the man and to piece together the puzzle of his life.