DONNA LEON

By Emma Domínguez-Rué

 

A New Yorker of Irish/Spanish descent, Donna Leon first went to Italy in 1965, returning regularly over the next decade or so while pursuing a career as an academic in the States and then later in Iran, China and finally Saudi Arabia. It was after a period in Saudi Arabia, which she found ‘damaging physically and spiritually’ that Donna decided to move to Venice, where she has now lived for over twenty years. Her debut as a crime fiction writer began as a joke: talking in a dressing room in Venice’s opera-house La Fenice after a performance, Donna and a singer friend were vilifying a particular German conductor. From the thought ‘why don’t we kill him?’ and discussion of when, where and how, the idea for Death at La Fenice took shape, and was completed over the next four months. Donna Leon is the crime reviewer for the London Sunday Times and is an opera expert.

 

A List of Novels:

The Brunetti Series:

  • Death at La Fenice (1992)
  • Death in a Strange Country (1993)
  • The Anonymous Venetian (1994) aka Dressed for Death
  • A Venetian Reckoning (1995) aka Death and Judgment
  • Acqua Alta (1996) aka Death in High Water
  • The Death of Faith (1997) aka Quietly in Their Sleep
  • A Noble Radiance (1997)
  • Fatal Remedies (1999)
  • Friends in High Places (2000)
  • A Sea of Troubles (2001)
  • Willful Behaviour (2002)
  • Uniform Justice (2003)
  • Doctored Evidence (2004)
  • Blood from a Stone (2005)
  • Through a Glass, Darkly (2006)
  • Suffer the Little Children (2007)
  • The Girl of His Dreams (2008)
  • About Face (2009)
  • A Question of Belief (2010)
  • Drawing Conclusions (2011)
  • Beastly Things (2012)
  • The Golden Egg (2013)
  • By Its Cover (2014)

Other Novels and Non-Fiction:

  • A Taste of Venice. At Table with Brunetti - with Roberta Pianaro (2010)
  • The Jewels of Paradise (2012)
  • Venetian Curiosities (2012)