Product Description

When the body of a wealthy elderly woman is found brutally murdered in her Venetian flat, it is soon clear to the police that the prime suspect is her Rumanian maid, who has disappeared and is heading for Rumania. When the woman is approached by the border police as her train is leaving Italy, she makes a run for it and is killed as she crosses the tracks in front of an oncoming train. She has a considerable sum of money on her and her papers are obvious forgeries. Case closed. But when the old woman's neighbour returns from a business trip to London, it becomes clear the maid could not have had time to kill the old woman before catching her train, and that the money on her was not stolen. Commissario Brunetti decides - unofficially - to take the case on himself. As Brunetti learns more of the old woman's family, he sees that this is probably not a crime motivated by Greed, rather that the probable motive connects with the temptations of Lust. But perhaps Brunetti is following a faalse trail and thinking of the wrong Deadly Sin altogether...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101960 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Doctored Evidence is every bit as impressive as any previous outing for the urbane Commissario Brunetti we've encountered--and reading a Donna Leon novel is almost as good as a trip to Italy, so evocative is the ex-pat of her adoptive country. Not that Signor Berlusconi would necessarily approve of the multiple levels of Italian corruption and double-dealing that Leon has strip-mined for her unflappable copper to take on--and her view of the other dark sides of Italy strays quite some way from the tourist's point of view.

Here, Brunetti seems to have come up against an open-and-shut case; a well-heeled Venetian is found bloodily murdered in her flat, with her missing maid, a Romanian immigrant, the prime suspect. The maid is tracked down, but meets a violent end on a railway track attempting to escape. Needless to say, Brunetti doesn't takes things at face value and when it transpires that the money found on the maid has not been stolen, this (along with other factors) has Brunetti doing a little unofficial sleuthing, and uncovering a very tangled web of motives indeed--with revelations quite different from the attempts to cover up municipal shenanigans that have often been the worm in the bud of previous Brunetti cases.

By now, we're all very comfortable with the Commissario and his dogged head-butting at complacent institutions. But Leon is not one to rest on her laurels--there are new elements here (notably in the brilliantly orchestrated final chapters) that take us into new territory. But all the things we love about this series are firmly in place: vivid, acutely detailed locales, the usual exemplary characterisation (not just of Brunetti--the whole dramatis personae here is spot-on); and of course that impeccable plotting. --Barry Forshaw

About the Author
Donna Leon was born in the US. She has lived in Venice for over 25 years.

Excerpted from Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1

She was an old cow and he hated her. Because he was a doctor and she his patient, he felt guilty about hating her, but not so guilty as to make him hate her any the less. Nasty, greedy, ill-tempered, forever complaining about her health and the few people who still had the stomach for her company, Maria Grazia Battestini was a woman about whom nothing good could be said, not even by the most generous of souls. The priest had given up on her long ago, and her neighbours spoke of her with distaste, sometimes with open animosity. Her family remained connected to her only by means of the laws governing inheritance. But he was a doctor, so he had no choice but to make his weekly visit, even though it now consisted of nothing more than a perfunctory inquiry as to how she felt, followed by the speedy measuring of her pulse and blood pressure. He’d been coming for more than four years now, and his aversion had become so strong that he had lost the fight against his repeated disappointment at the continued absence of signs of illness. Just past eighty, she looked and acted a decade older, but she’d live to bury him; she’d live to bury them all.

He had a key and used it to let himself into the building. The whole place was hers, all three floors, though she occupied only half of the second. Spite and meanness caused her to maintain the fiction that she occupied all of it, for by so doing she kept her sister Santina’s daughter from moving into either the floor above or the one below. He forgot how many times, in the years since the death of her son, she had hurled abuse upon her sister and told him how much pleasure it gave her perpetually to frustrate her family’s designs upon the house. She spoke of her sister with malice that had gathered momentum ever since their shared childhood.

He turned the key to the right, and because it is in the nature of Venetian doors not to open at first try, he automatically pulled the door towards him as he turned the key. He pushed the door open, stepping into the dim entrance hall. No sunlight could penetrate the decades of grease and dirt that covered the two narrow windows above the door to the calle. He no longer noticed the dimness, and it had been years since Signora Battestini had been able to come down the steps, so the windows were unlikely to be cleaned any time soon. Damp had fused the wires years before, but she refused to pay for an electrician, and he had lost the habit of trying to switch the light on.

He started up the first flight of stairs, glad that this was his last call of the morning. He’d finish with the old horror and go and have a drink, then get some lunch. He didn’t have to be at his surgery to see patients until five; had no plans after lunch and nothing he particularly wanted to do, so long as he could be free of the sight and sound of their wasted and bloated bodies.

As he started up the second flight, he found himself hoping that the new woman – he thought this one was Romanian, for that was how the old woman referred to her, though they never stayed long enough for him to remember their names – would last. Since her arrival, the old shrew was at least clean and no longer stank of urine. Over the years he’d watched them come and go; come because they were drawn by the prospect of work, even if it meant cleaning and feeding Signora Battestini and submitting to her unrelenting abuse; go because each had eventually been so worn down that even the most abject need could not resist the assault of the woman’s nastiness.

From the habit of politeness, he knocked at her door, though he knew it a futile courtesy. The blaring of her television, which had been audible even from outside the building, drowned out the sound: even the younger ears of the Romanian – what was her name? – seldom registered his arrival.

He took the second key and turned it twice, then stepped into the apartment. At least it was clean. There had been a time, he thought it was about a year after her son died, when no one had come for more than a week, and the old woman had been left alone in the apartment. He still remembered the smell of the place when he’d opened the door for his then bi-monthly visit, and, when he’d gone into the kitchen, the sight of the plates of decomposing food left on the table for a week in the July heat. And the sight of her, body encased in layers of fat, naked and covered with the drips and dribbles of what she had tried to eat, hunched in a chair in front of the eternally blaring television. She’d ended up in hospital that time, dehydrated and disoriented, but they’d wanted quit of her after only three days, and since she demanded to be in her own home, they’d gladly taken the option and had her carried there. The Ukrainian woman had come then, the one who’d disappeared after three weeks, taking a silver serving plate with her, and his visits had been increased to once a week. But the old woman had not changed: her heart pounded on, her lungs pulled in the air of the apartment, and the layers of fat grew ever thicker.

He set his bag on the table by the door, glad to see that its surface was clean, a sure sign that the Romanian was still there. He took the stethoscope, hooked it behind his ears, and went into the living room.

Customer Reviews

Leon is RX for a great read!
It's more than a "lucky 13" for Donna Leon. "Doctored Evidence" is acarefully-crafted, purposefully-written, and fully-fulfilling (typical!)Leon police procedural featuring my favorite Italian, Commissario GuidoBrunetti.
The erstwhile policeman has been on holiday to Ireland when the deathoccurs (A Romanian cleaning woman supposedly murdered her employer andmade off with a large sum of money, only to be apprehended at a bordercrossing; before police can take her into custody, she bolts and is killedby an on-coming train)and when he returns he has already dismissed thecase, which he'd read about in the papers, as merely a "cut and dried"episode in the life of the police in Venice.
Of course, the death of the cleaning woman has suspicious and unusualcircumstances and shortly after Brunetti returns to work, a neighbor ofthe dead woman reports to the police that she has proof that the woman isinnocent. This, of course, really peaks Brunetti's interest and from thatpoint on, Donna Leon is, well, Donna Leon.
Before the case is closed, of course, readers once again witness theinter-play between Brunetti and his associates, his family, and hisbeloved Venice. Leon is not shy about taking literary pot shots at anumber of socially significant issues facing not only the Venezians, theItalians, but the rest of the world.
Step by step, Leon takes us to the conclusion, where, of course it's nosecret, Brunetti's intellect, talent, and good will once more triumph.
"Doctored Evidence" continues the Leon reputation. What a fascinatingseries Leon has created. Tis a pity one has to wait a year for the nextepisode.

Another delightful Brunetti experience
Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series, set in her adopted home-city of Venice, is one of the most purely enjoyable currently being produced. It is a huge big sparkling gem in the crown of crime fiction – it is a treasure trove of pure enjoyment.

Doctored Evidence is the 13th in the award-winning series, and just as good as all the rest. An unpleasant old-woman is found murdered in her apartment by her doctor. She was not liked. Treating her maids no better than slaves, and keeping her television on loud almost every night are just two of the behaviours which alienate her from her neighbours. Suspicion immediately falls on her Romanian maid, who is missing and heading back to her country. As the police catch up with her at a train station on the border, she flees in desperation, and is killed as she runs across the tracks into the path of a train.

Finding a large amount of money on her person, they believe they’ve found their woman. That is, until one of the victim’s neighbours returns from a business trip in London, with strong evidence to suggest that she was not the killer. The investigating officer dismisses her, passing her off to Brunetti, who starts to investigate the case unofficially, and uncovers a mystery far more complex than the one they all suspected.

The fact that Leon writes these novels purely for pleasure (she has said that she would far rather attend the opera if it came to a choice) and not for fame or money (uncomfortable with any kind of “celebrity”, she refuses to allow them to be published in Italy) really shines through this marvellous series. It is infused with something marvellous. This is crime fiction for the sake of it. It is pure and it is wonderful.

That’s not to say it isn’t serious, either, because it is. Donna Leon does for Venice what Ruth Rendell does for Britain and Michael Connelly for L.A. Like many great crime writers, Leon uses her fiction as a way of highlighting things about the world – in this case specifically Venice – which concern her. Indeed, often they expose a level of corruption which Signor Berlusconi would not be at all pleased about! Doctored Evidence focuses perhaps less on general civic corruption – although Leon can’t resist throwing hints of it into the mix – and more on a kind of personal corruption, while still managing to write as piercingly and fascinatingly about the society of Venice as ever. She is in the fortunate position of an outsider able to look at a society from the inside, and she utilises that advantage brilliantly for her portrait of the city. These novels are practically drenched in culture, and their protagonist is wonderfully refreshing: he is not hard or gritty, nor particularly flawed or jaded; he is just a normal Italian, a very moral man who wrestles every day with justice and its ambiguities. Plus, his wife is wonderful! The plots are refreshing, too, in the way of much European fiction: they are much less formulaic than some American or British fiction. Leon’s mysteries are predictable only in their excellence. Doctored Evidence is a wonderful novel, a pure, sublime joy that no reader should allow to pass by.

DOCTORED EVIDENCE is one of Donna Leon's BEST!
Donna Leon’s thirteenth Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery novel begins with the discovery of the very brutal murder of a hateful and despised old lady. The victim had harassed her neighbors for the past five years with her blaringly loud television. The immediate suspect is the woman’s Romanian housekeeper, who was accosted crossing the Italian border on a return train trip to her native country. The suspect panicked, fled the train and was accidentally run over by another oncoming train. Brunetti was on vacation in Ireland at the time and Lieutenant Scarpa, a vindictive colleague, quickly declared the murder solved and essentially closed the case. Upon his return, Brunetti reopens the case when a conscientious women contacts the police declaring the housekeeper’s innocence and providing a plausible alibi. This sets stage for a battle of wills between Brunetti and his hated arch-rival Lieutenant Scarpa. As always, the good guys are the triumvirate of Brunetti, loyal Inspector Vianello, and the wonderfully clever Signorina Elettra, the Vice-Questore’s secretary. Signorina Elettra, using her computer hacking skills, digs up relevant information such as secret bank accounts, money transfers, and telephone records on a wide range of suspects. After Brunetti has a discussion with his wife Paola about the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth), he tries to reason out which of these sins was the motive for the murder of the old lady.

Leon does a marvelous job of introducing her varied cast of interesting characters and some of the current attitudes of Venetians. These include prejudice towards Eastern European immigrants and gays; the dread of AIDS; tax evasion and suspected construction fraud. As usual, we are treated to Leon’s entertaining descriptions of Signorina Elettra’s wardrobe, Paola’s gourmet meals and the current activities of the Brunetti kids, Chiara and Raffi. In addition, we get some behind the scenes insights into the postal service, the legal profession, the schools administration and a bakery.

In DOCTORED EVIDENCE, Commissario Brunetti has become more impatient and seems to excessively browbeat witnesses and potential suspects -- no more Mr. Nice Guy. There are some memorable scenes where he locks horns with the easy-to-hate Lieutenant Scarpa.

The only disappointment was that it will be 12 months before the next Brunetti mystery is released.