It is a pleasure to settle in to one of Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries, once again to have glorious Italian lunches with his wife, Paola, and their children, Raffi and Chiara, and to learn, as we do in Beastly Things, which part of the seamy underside of Venetian life Brunetti will now uncover.
This time, a body is found in one of the canals. It is eventually identified as a local veterinarian, Dottore Nava, well-loved by his patients and their owners. He is recently separated from his wife, and she tells Brunetti that she asked him to leave after he told her he was having an affair.
To increase his income, Nava had taken a part-time job at a local slaughterhouse, where he met Giulia Borelli, his eventual downfall. His duties were limited to certifying that animals were well enough to be slaughtered and their meat fit for human consumption. Lots of room for corruption here, and eventually Brunetti uncovers all of it.
There are two set pieces in the novel that are absolutely brilliant writing: the visit of Brunetti and Vianello to the slaughterhouse and Dottore Nava's funeral. In the former, with no florid adjectives or sensational setups, Leon manages to portray the horror of what the men are led into and the effect it has on them. In the latter, Brunetti notices strange noises in the church and looks around to discover that many of Dottore Nava's patients are in attendance: a green parrot, a Great Dane, a one-eared rabbit, a mournful dachshund and a cat or two. --Valerie Ryan