SO SHALL YOU REAP is a novel full of secrets. The larger case in this story involves a murder investigation of a Sri Lankan man who had been living in Venice for many years. His body is found in the canal and there are no immediate suspects or motives for this apparently senseless murder. The man named Inesh had lived in the garden house of a wealthy older Venetian couple for eight years. All they knew about him is that he was nice, quiet, and a devout Buddhist. Inspection of his small residence confirmed this as Brunetti did not find much more than a small statue of Buddha that he worshipped at and a number of novels, mostly crime fiction. WANDERING THROUGH LIFE is an eye-opening read that truly fills in the blanks of Leon's life while maintaining enough of a distance so that readers still will have plenty to learn about her. Most of all, it makes me eagerly await her next Brunetti novel, which cannot come fast enough.

The process of memory is odd, isn’t it? Do we remember things because we were there and saw them, or because we’ve been told them so often that they’ve been forced to become real?” I found the book uneven. Some parts were fascinating; others I found myself skimming from boredom. For example, several of the vignettes are about Venice. I was less than impressed by reading about her friend constructing a gondola. The story of Artu, the singing dachshund, was at least humorous. But I was fascinated by the pollution and the destruction that the cruise ships are causing. As always, Brunetti is highly attuned to (and sympathetic toward) the failings of the humans around him.”— Seattle Times In this slim volume, Leon discusses her passion for reading and admits that she becomes obsessed with subjects that intrigue her. For instance, she writes eloquently about bees, those fascinating and productive insects who are an essential part of our ecosystem. In addition, Ms. Leon is a devotee of the composer Handel, whose works have moved her to tears. Leon has taught English in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Italy, and might have finished her doctorate had her dissertation not been confiscated by the Iranian government.Things soon take a more serious turn when a hand is seen in a canal and the body of an undocumented worker is soon found. What is the nature of Brunetti’s relationship with his father-in-law, and how has it changed over time? How has his well-connected father-in-law “made the path . . . easier” for Brunetti (p. 35)? How does Brunetti feel about this assistance? In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon’s bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti’s own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim’s interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. Until around 2015, the author lived in Venice for over 30 years (she has lived in Venice since the 1980s) , however, recently she moved to Switzerland, in her home in Zurich and her other home in a small village in the mountains. Donna Leon is not married and has no partner or an ex-husband. In an interview, she mentioned that marriage is not something that suits her; she prefers to remain single. She does return to the US, albeit infrequently, as she doesn’t feel at home there. Over the years, she has worked at the University of Maryland University College – Europe as its lecturer in English literature, and for 18 years she worked as a professor at the American military base of Vicenza. The pacing is very slow, meandering, and full of reminiscence. She writes with wit and humor about her long life and career as an author.

Wandering Through Life” contains some standout chapters, including one on how bees and beekeeping played an integral role in the plot of the Brunetti novel “Earthly Remains” (2017), and another in which Ms. Leon, now 80, ruminates on “the other end of life.” But although Ms. Leon’s slim memoir proves warm, witty and engaging, some readers and most fans will be left wanting more. She offers an overview of her life rather than an in-depth trawl through it.The Donna Leon chronology starts with her debut novel, Death at la Fenice. She started writing her Commissario Brunetti series in the early 1990s. She published her first novel in 1992 after 8 months of writing her story. The book made Donna Leon into a bestselling author. She wrote her debut novel on a whim. While at the Opera House La Fenice, she got the idea to write a book just to see if she could write it. She was in her late 40s, and at the insistence of her friends, she submitted the manuscript at a contest in Japan, and much to her surprise, she was a winner of the Japanese Suntory prize. In her introduction, Ms. Leon makes it clear that she hasn’t yet hung up her pen: She is looking forward to spending time with Brunetti again and giving him the chance “to reveal more about himself, his past, and what he thinks and feels.” If only she had done the same here for herself. Brunetti had no trouble making the translation from police vocabulary to reality. ‘Violence? Alvise?’

In a series of honest, humourous vignettes about everything from growing up on a farm, to music, food, and teaching in Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia, Leon captures a vivid recollection of living an adventurous life. While chronicling events across time from her childhood to current home in Switzerland, Leon keeps a distance between the story and her personal life, narrating almost as though the incidents happened to somebody else. For fans of her bestselling Guido Brunetti mystery series, she doesn’t go into the creation of the books, but instead informs the reader about the city (and the bees) that inspired her. Aptly titled, Wandering Through Life is a collection of thoughts and lessons learned over a lifetime of letting chance and opportunity shape her existence. I’ve been an avid reader of Donna Leon’s Venice based Commissario Brunetti mysteries for many years, reading all thirty two episodes and also passing many of them on to my late mum, who eagerly gobbled them up too. So when I spotted that she’d written a memoir, I was really keen to get hold of a copy at the earliest opportunity. But having read it, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It certainly wasn’t quite what I was expecting. So Shall You Reap is the thirty-second book in the Commissario Brunetti series by award-winning American-born author, Donna Leon. Another visit to Guido Brunetti’s Venice, and it’s a good one! While there are plenty of day-to-day tasks and issues keeping Commissario Guido Brunetti busy, it’s the vicious stabbing murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan servant that draws his attention from them. Donna Leon is the popular author of 32 novels featuring Guido Brunetti, a Commissario di Polizia of the City of Venice. Trebitsch Produktion has adapted 26 of those books for German television. A real-estate query leads to more troubled waters for Venice’s Commissario Guido Brunetti . . . The commissario’s company and sensibility keep a reader in thrall throughout this and every entry in Ms. Leon’s indispensable series.”— Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

Scenes in the Brunetti apartment with Paola (his wife) and the children, are some favorite moments. En sus novelas, Leon otorga una importancia capital al trasfondo politico, social o cultural de una ciudad, Venecia, que retrata con habilidad de forma vívida, permitiendo al lector descubrirla a través de los ojos de aquellos que viven allí. Una de las grandes bazas de la serie es el análisis en profundidad que realiza de la sociedad veneciana, desde su geografía hasta su cultura, a la vez que hace un íntimo retrato de la vida personal de Brunetti, a quien en esta ocasión conoceremos algo más gracias a esa incursión en sus años de juventud. La autora tiene un gran habilidad a la hora de crear personajes complejos que cobran vida en sus páginas con aparente sencillez. But the foreign country that changed Ms. Leon’s life, and the one that most readers will be interested to hear her experience of and her opinions on, is Italy. She got her first taste of the place in the late ’60s, when a former university classmate asked her to accompany her on a trip. She fell in love with the people and la dolce vitaduring her stay and finally settled in Venice in the early ’80s.