Donna Leon Books in Order

This collection of short essays focuses on the backstage side of being a writer and teacher. Leon reflects on reading, teaching, research trips for the Brunetti novels and the people who have influenced her, offering a candid, often humorous view of her working life.

Clashes between Venice’s so-called “baby gangs” bring a frightened teenager into contact with Claudia Griffoni and Brunetti. As they probe threats against the boy and an attack on a police technician, the investigation exposes family pressures, online manipulation and the city’s restless youth.

In this relaxed memoir Leon looks back on childhood in New Jersey, improvised jobs around the world, teaching in far-flung places and discovering Handel. The chapters read like conversations, sketching a life shaped more by curiosity than by careful planning.

After a Sri Lankan immigrant is pulled dead from a canal, Brunetti discovers the man had been living on the grounds of a professor’s palazzo and reading about radical politics. The case forces Brunetti to revisit Italy’s turbulent “Years of Lead” and his own student days.

During the COVID pandemic, Brunetti agrees—against his better judgment—to quietly look into the son-in-law of an old neighbor. What begins as a favor leads to vandalism, tax fraud and questions about loyalty, generosity and how far he can bend the rules.

Two young American tourists are dumped, badly injured, outside a Venetian hospital dock in the middle of the night. Security footage shows two local men fleeing. Following their trail, Brunetti and Griffoni uncover smuggling, human trafficking and a crime committed beyond his usual jurisdiction.

A dying woman in a hospice whispers that her husband’s fatal motorcycle crash involved “bad money.” Brunetti and Claudia Griffoni trace the man’s work at a company testing lagoon water, confronting environmental negligence and the invisible damage done by tainted contracts.

An elderly friend of Brunetti’s plans to adopt a much younger man as his son and heir, shocking Venetian society. When sudden death and contested wills follow, Brunetti must untangle motives of love, vanity and greed.

This companion volume offers walking routes through Venice that trace Brunetti’s investigations, from markets and churches to hidden campi. Commentary, maps and brief excerpts from the novels help readers see the city as the commissario does, beyond the usual tourist trail.

A distraught woman asks Brunetti to look into her husband’s odd behavior. When the man, a school accountant, is found gravely injured, Brunetti uncovers drug use among students, official indifference and the quiet courage of someone who tried to blow the whistle.

After a confrontation at work sends his stress levels soaring, Brunetti retreats to a relative’s villa on the island of Sant’Erasmo. There he rows with the caretaker, an old friend of his father—until the man disappears, and Brunetti senses a tragedy tied to poisoned waters.

At a charity dinner, an old family friend begs Brunetti to revisit a decades-old accident that left her granddaughter permanently brain-damaged. Digging into a supposedly closed case, Brunetti confronts buried memories, social snobbery and what people will accept to avoid scandal.

Opera diva Flavia Petrelli returns to Venice to sing Tosca, trailed by extravagant bouquets and an anonymous admirer who seems to know her every move. When people around her are attacked, Brunetti must distinguish devotion from dangerous obsession.

Rare books are vandalized in a private Venetian library, their pages neatly cut out and stolen. As Brunetti investigates the obvious suspect and an ex-priest who read there, he uncovers a tangle involving art forgery, debts and the value people place on culture.

A quiet young man known around Brunetti’s neighborhood as deaf and developmentally disabled dies after an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. Disturbed by how little record there is of his life, Brunetti pulls at the loose threads and exposes a carefully buried family history.

This collection gathers dozens of short, sharp essays on Venice, travel, music, animals, America and everyday irritations. Leon writes in her own voice—by turns amused, cranky and affectionate—offering glimpses of the city and concerns that lie behind the Brunetti novels.

Leon traces the history and craft of the Venetian gondola, from nimble medieval workboat to sleek black symbol of romance. She explains how the boats are built, how they were used over centuries, and why they still fascinate visitors and Venetians alike.

In a series of brief pieces, Leon recounts odd episodes from Venice’s history and customs—rampaging carnival animals, judicial blunders, schemes involving gamblers and prostitutes. The result is a witty, slightly barbed portrait of the city behind Brunetti’s cases.

Musicologist Caterina Pellegrini returns to Venice to examine two sealed trunks believed to hold the papers of a forgotten baroque composer. Hired by rival heirs, she pieces together his life and last testament, uncovering long-hidden scandals, family grudges and questions of inheritance.

A disfigured man’s body surfaces in a Venetian canal, with no ID and only a single shoe. When Brunetti learns he was a veterinarian who inspected a slaughterhouse, the trail leads into the meat industry and the moral cost of looking away.

An elderly woman is found dead in her modest apartment, apparently of a heart attack. Small details bother Brunetti, and following them leads him through charities, shelters and a secret network devoted to protecting battered women—and to a much older financial crime.

Blending literary essay, music appreciation and artwork, this small book explores how animals appear in Handel’s operas. Leon follows lions, nightingales, snakes and other creatures through baroque arias, medieval bestiaries and myth, inviting readers to listen to the music with fresh ears.

Drawing on the meals enjoyed by Brunetti and his family, this cookbook invites readers into the Brunettis’ kitchen. Recipes from Paola, Brunetti’s mother and friends sit alongside short pieces by Donna Leon, celebrating everyday Venetian food rather than restaurant showpieces.

Venice swelters under an August heatwave as Brunetti leaves town on holiday, worried about Vianello’s aunt, who has fallen under an astrologer’s spell. When a trusted court usher is murdered amid suspicious case delays, questions of faith, fraud and justice intertwine.

Inspired by the meals in the Brunetti novels, this cookbook gathers more than ninety Venetian recipes from Donna Leon’s friend Roberta Pianaro. Interleaved with short essays and novel excerpts, it shows how food grounds Brunetti’s family life amid his often grim work.

At a dinner party Brunetti meets a charming woman whose heavily altered face masks an unclear past. Meanwhile, he’s assigned to cooperate with a carabiniere investigating illegal toxic-waste trucking. As the two threads converge, personal loyalties collide with environmental crime.

During a rainy morning patrol, Brunetti and Vianello pull the body of a young girl from the Grand Canal. Identifying her brings them into contact with a marginalized Romani community and forces Brunetti to confront prejudice, poverty and his own assumptions.

Armed men claiming to be police burst into a pediatrician’s apartment, injuring him and traumatizing his young family. Brunetti’s search for their motives uncovers shady adoptions, medical corruption and the buying and selling of children to those who can pay.

A night watchman is found dead beside a blazing furnace at a Murano glass factory, an annotated copy of Dante nearby. Brunetti’s investigation into the man’s life leads to family rivalries, industrial pollution and simmering resentment in the glassworks.

A street vendor selling fake designer bags is gunned down in Venice’s Campo Santo Stefano, his life dismissed as unimportant. Brunetti’s quiet determination to identify the man and his killers exposes illegal trafficking and powerful forces that would rather look away.

A wealthy, unpleasant widow is murdered, and her Romanian maid dies beneath a train while trying to flee with stolen money. Case closed—until a neighbor insists the maid was innocent. Off the books, Brunetti revisits the evidence and follows the scent of greed.

A cadet at an elite Venetian military academy is discovered hanged, an apparent suicide. As Brunetti questions teachers, parents and officers, he runs into a wall of silence and class privilege that suggests the boy’s death may have been anything but voluntary.

One of Paola’s brightest students asks Brunetti to help her seek a pardon for a crime committed by her grandfather decades earlier. When the young woman is later found murdered, Brunetti must uncover what dangerous secret she stirred up in the past.

Two clam fishermen are murdered off the island of Pellestrina, a tight-knit community suspicious of outsiders. When Signorina Elettra volunteers to stay with relatives there, Brunetti must balance his duty to solve the killings with his fear for her safety.

A young bureaucrat visits Brunetti about irregular paperwork on the family apartment, then dies in a mysterious fall from scaffolding. Chasing the truth through city offices and shady contractors, Brunetti sees how permits, favors and friendships can be traded like cash.

Brunetti’s wife Paola is arrested after hurling a rock through a travel agency’s window to protest sex tourism, costing him his job and reputation. Soon the agency’s owner is murdered, forcing Brunetti to investigate crimes uncomfortably close to home.

When a long-buried corpse and a signet ring surface near a farmhouse below the Dolomites, Brunetti is drawn into the affairs of a grieving aristocratic family. His search for the truth uncovers old betrayals and a very modern hunger for status.

A young nun leaves her convent after several elderly patients die unexpectedly, convinced something is wrong. When she asks Brunetti for help, his quiet inquiry into religious charities and nursing homes reveals a chilling mix of greed, hypocrisy and piety.

As winter storms and rising floodwaters threaten Venice, an art historian friend of Brunetti’s is brutally attacked in the palazzo she shares with a famous opera singer. Investigating, Brunetti enters a world of stolen antiquities, museum politics and calculated violence.

A truck crash in the Dolomites exposes a horrifying cargo, just as a prominent lawyer is found murdered on a train to Venice. Brunetti must connect two distant crimes and uncover who profits from trafficking hidden behind respectability.

A savagely beaten corpse in women’s clothing is found near an abattoir on Venice’s mainland. As Brunetti fights heat, prejudice and official pressure, the trail leads from street prostitution to bankers, moral crusaders and a lucrative protection racket.

Early one morning a young American soldier is pulled from a filthy Venetian canal, his death written off as a mugging. Brunetti’s unease leads him toward toxic-waste deals, military secrecy and a cover-up stretching far beyond one body.

During a performance at Venice’s famed La Fenice opera house, a celebrated conductor collapses, poisoned between acts. Commissario Guido Brunetti explores the music world’s rivalries and old scandals to learn who turned a crowded theatre into the perfect crime scene.