Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2377 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-13
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.com
Amazon Best of the Month, May 2008: Reading The Girl of His Dreams leaves you no choice but to reconsider what makes a mystery novel so good. Certainly there's no denying the appeal of a hard-boiled crime story, where more often than not a brilliant yet battered P.I. drives you white-knuckled to the edge of your seat, but Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti--at once exactingly inquisitive and disarmingly sensitive--bucks that genre convention entirely. Here, in Leon's seventeenth Brunetti mystery, is a man who investigates the tragic drowning of a young Gypsy girl relentlessly, yet--in his thoughtful meanderings through the streets and cafes of Venice--also struggles to understand the human warps and weaknesses that make his beloved city so vulnerable. In the end, it's this pure love and curiosity for life (and, I admit, his lusty appreciation of daily luxuries like prosecco, good coffee, or a burst of sunshine) that make Brunetti such a seductive hero--so much so that you're willing to follow him wherever he goes. --Anne Bartholomew

From the Publisher
Narrator Information: David Colacci has directed and performed in prominent theaters nationwide for the past thirty years. His credits include roles from Shakespeare to Albee. As a narrator, he has recorded authors ranging from Jules Verne to John Irving to Michael Chabon.

About the Author
Donna Leon has lived in Venice for many years and previously in Switzerland, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China, where she worked as a teacher. She now combines writing with teaching English Literature at a university near Venice and visits England regularly.

Customer Reviews

The Girl of his Dreams
As compellingly readable as always. Donna Leon evokes the mysterious underbelly of Venice better than anyone, while also drawing the almost prosaic in her depiction of the Brunettis' family life. I love her books and this one is no exception.

Much more of the same from Leon
This latest in the series by Donna Leon is about par. I purchased it to follow Guido Brunetti's adventures and not to miss Leon's most recent comments about Venetian life and Italian politics and religion. Leon is not a formula writer, but this one is nearly a formula effort. It combines concerns that Brunetti has faced in the past with timely concerns about the welfare of children and dealing with minority populations. His encounters with his supervisor as less and less interesting and really are not central to this volume. He continuing interests in justice for the less fortunate still drives his efforts and this series. As usual, the use of Venice and changes in Venice as a culture enrich the story. The addition of Gypsies to the story line illustrates the continuing ambivalence of Italy towards it traveler population. The mood of the book is sympathetic, but not overly, to issues of how to deal with the Romani.

Donna Leon at her Very Best
I am not a mystery fan. But I love books that transport me to an interesting place and/or time. Donna Leon excels at this. She has lived in Venice for over 25 years and writes lovingly of the people, the canals, and life there. She has created a wonderful set of warm, endearing characters. particularly Commissario Guido Brunetti, his family, and Signorina Elettra. I'm working my way through the series of Commissario Brunetti stories and am about half way through, and this story is one of the best.

David Colacci is a dynamic reader and to my Italian-American ears does a pretty Italian accent. He is greatly superior to Anna Fields who was the reader for the earlier audiobooks.

I very highly recommend this book and the series to any one who wants to have a sense of what it feels like to live in Venice. I am charmed by the descriptions of life in the city and the glorious food. Can Italians really eat that well?!