Tedious and pedantic. Lots of info. But a story that does not come close to ms.Leons Guido books. A very disappointing ending. I lost imterest after two chapters. Stil,, Ms Leon is a superb writer....

The setting in Leon’s new book is still Venice, just as in the author’s well-loved Commissario Guido Brunetti detective stories. In this standalone novel, a musicologist, Caterina Pellegrini, who has specialized in Baroque Opera, jumps at the chance of leaving dreary Manchaster behind to return to her native Venice. She is offered a temporary job that involves scouring through two ancient trunks of papers that supposedly belonged to a seventeenth century Italian Baroque composer, diplomat and bishop Steffani. Two of his rather greedy descendants are making a stake for the inheritance and hope to claim “The Jewels of Paradise” hidden by the composer. The actual jewels themselves, retrieved in the end, come as a bit of a surprise. The plot unfolds slowly and gets a bit lost in a book is full of historical detail, musical research, the details of Steffani’s life and the reality and challenges of present day Venice. Readers who pick up Leon’s new offering might miss the detective Guido Brunetti and his wife’s cooking and the other familiar characters that people the author’s previous series. Reviewed by KB

Disappointing, tedious. Give us another Brunetti!

This is probably an old Twilight Zone plot. It would have been a good short story if you like predictable endings.

I'm usually afraid when the author dumps her beloved -- to us -- character to do something different, but in this case the book is just as good. Most everything you love is still here: a mixture of art, taxes, family, fraud, music, murder, old ladies, coffee, etc.

What a "come down" for this author. There is very little purpose or intrigue. This could have been a story about how a master's degree research student was doing a thesis. No excitement. Even the end was a disappointment. I continued to read, hoping that something unexpected was going to happen. I hope Donna Leon goes back to the original books, which I loved.

I agree with the previous two comments. This was a very slow book with too much attention to the details of research and very little in the way of plot. The "bad guys" seemed almost peripheral to the story, and the ending was quite flat. Even the lead character did not have the panache of her previous character of Guido Brunetti.

To avoid - too much details, no story. Last 10 pages recap the 244 pages of the book. Did not expect this from Donna Leon.

This is not one of her best. I think it becomes bogged down in the detail, the characters don't emerge as interesting and the ending feels contrived.