Trace Elements by Donna Leon

Anyone who reads this review regularly will know that the past three weeks in the life of the owners of Parry Sound Books have been beyond stressful. As well as worrying about the future of the business, and ourselves, we have been working hard physically to move what is left of the business into our home, and begin to serve customers again. We emptied our storage room in the basement of the Beatty Building, and tossed into a dumpster boxes of business records, window displays, seasonal racks, and everything else accumulated over the past 28 years.

So, toward the end of the week I bailed – I went to Venice. I love Venice, the architecture, the food, the water, the serene beauty of the place, all of it. We have a favourite little place we stay, in a house with 6 rooms for rent, tucked away in a quiet neighbourhood, owned by a young architect. Long before we first went to Venice for real, we visited vicariously, as I did last week, thanks to Donna Leon, and her most recent novel Trace Elements.

Trace Elements takes place during a sweltering hot summer, when even the most comfortable and light linen suit is quickly soaked and sticks uncomfortably to the back of Commissario Guido Brunetti as he goes about his day investigating crime in Venice. Accompanied by his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, he visits a dying woman in hospital, who has concerns about the recent death of her husband. She believes he was killed because of “bad money”, his death not an accident, but murder. 

At the same time as this investigation begins, Vice-Questore Patta insists that the police force do more to control crime in the city, especially the work of pick pockets, many of them young girls.

As always, Patta’s secretary, and Brunetti’s ally, Signorina Elettra Zorszoi, provides access to information, no matter how deeply buried. In the case of the, perhaps murdered, husband it is very possible that his work as an inspector of the water supply for the city of Venice may be the reason for his death, either by suicide or murder, if not an innocent accident after all. 

As Brunetti and Griffoni walk the city, and ride the vaporetti, we trail along behind, listening to conversations that sometimes stray into the personal. We stand beside as they watch the cleaning of a section of canal, the sludge being scooped up and removed, along with anything else that had been dropped in and lingered there until now.

Venice is a vulnerable city, surrounded by rising water, and there is much concern about the effect of climate change, with both flooding and drought causing worry for the residents.

The first time we went to Venice it was because we did not have the time required for a long trip in Europe, and chose one city for a stay of ten days, when we felt the need for a time away from life at home. Thanks, to Donna Leon we can all escape to Venice anytime we like, even for a day or two, just by opening the cover of one her many absorbing novels.