A Noble Radiance: a very short review

Donna Leon's 7th Guido Brunetti book is A Noble Radiance, first published in 1998 and thus now 25 years old.

As opposed to some books in the series, this one is a very straightforward detective novel. A body is found in a field, buried, shot in the head, and it turns out to be the son of a wealthy Venetian businessman. The son was kidnapped from the family's estate two years ago; no ransom was paid and the kidnapping was never solved.

Commissario Brunetti is notified, and initially considers simply closing the kidnapping case.

But as he reviews the case, something isn't quite right. There is a little detail about the kidnapping that doesn't fit, and Brunetti can't leave it alone.

He looks deeper, he asks more questions. Feathers are ruffled. Little by little, Brunetti learns more, and a picture starts to form.

At the end, Brunetti solves the case, but in typical Donna Leon enigmatic fashion, the outcome isn't exactly justice, and it isn't exactly not justice.

I really loved this book, particularly because the final plot twist is sufficiently well-hidden that it resonates powerfully when you figure it out just at the same time that Commissario Brunetti does, with that vivid "Oh no! Now I see what really happened" moment of insight. It takes a very skilled author to make that work.

Another wonderful and thoroughly readable Guido Brunetti mystery novel.

Aside: at the end of the book, the publisher includes the first chapter of another Brunetti novel. But that is not the first chapter of book 8! It in fact is the first chapter of book 12! I think this is because the Penguin Books edition came out 5 years after the original hardback version of A Noble Radiance, and so they include the first chapter of the most-recently-published Brunetti novel, not the "next" novel. So it makes sense. But it's still confusing!