In Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti’s hunt for clues during a murder investigation in Beastly Things, he makes his way to a meat company’s slaughterhouse on the mainland. There, the sounds and smells of the animal butchering cause Brunetti to feel helplessly faint at heart. Even though there is much sleuthing time left in the day, he hurries home for a long shower and glasses of wine. This treatment brings little relief to his delicate sensibilities, and next day, he continues to avoid the office, ignoring his duties in the case that took him to the slaughterhouse.

Can anyone imagine any other homicide cop, Harry Bosch for example, behaving like such a fragile flower? Dragging his feet on a murder case just because some cows were turned into steaks? The way it’s supposed to work, not even dead two-legged creatures should deter homicide guys. Four-legged corpses wouldn’t give Bosch a pause in his hunt for murderers.

But cops do things differently in Venice. Brunetti is famous for rarely passing up the sumptuous lunches and dinners his spectacular wife Paola prepares. And he punctuates each day with leisurely visits to bistros for coffee and pastries. Much of his work day, it’s true, is taken up with the necessary manipulation of his immediate superior, the very political Vice Questore Giuseppe Patta, and he must forever tiptoe around his country’s rampant corruption. Nevertheless, Brunetti seems seldom far from a snooze or a soothing glass of wine, especially when his sensitive nerves are threatened.

The 21st novel in Donna Leon’s series has all the familiar elements, but unlike other recent Brunetti books, this one offers an authentically puzzling case and some brilliant grilling of suspects. The story gets under way when a male body turns up in a Venice canal. Medical examination reveals that the victim was stabbed three times and stripped clean of all identification. Brunetti starts the case from scratch, without even a name for the body.

The usual shortcuts to vital information are provided to Brunetti by the Internet-savvy police receptionist, Signorina Elettra. (That’s another area where Bosch must operate differently, not having a secretary who saves him from pounding the pavement in the interests of answering the case’s smaller but essential questions.) Still, it’s Brunetti who shines on his own in the sessions of cross-examination. These exchanges are vastly entertaining, and show Brunetti, rallied from his spell of faint-heartedness, as a sleuth at the top of his game.

Auch in Brunettis 21. Fall wirkt die nackte Gier als mörderische Triebkraft. In den Verhören der Beteiligten läuft der Kommissar zu großer Form auf, die Autorin konstruiert Dialoge voll Esprit und psychologischer Raffinesse.

Bei keinem Kommissar stimmt die Work-Life-Balance wie bei Guido Brunetti: Im 21. Fall lässt Donna Leon ihren Ermittler wieder an der Lagunenstadt leiden und Müßiggang, Familie, Essen, Wein genießen.