Transient Desires: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

Transient Desires is the 30th book in a series by Donna Leon featuring Guido Brunetti, a police chief in Venice, Italy. These are not fast-paced thrillers but move slowly, evocative of a rather melancholic city in decline. The quality of the books goes up and down—as you would expect from a series that has been going on for this many years—but this one, Transient Desires, is a good one. You end up really caring about the crime and wanting to see it punished. You will also be spending some time living in Italy—going home for lunch with Brunetti, having coffees around Venice, musing on the differences between Neapolitans and Venetians, surrounded, as everywhere in public service, with budget cuts.

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