Donna Leon - "The Golden Egg"

Not all of Guido Brunetti's cases involve actively investigating crimes. 2013's The Golden Egg is one of the better examples where a "mystery" certainly exists, but the nature of any crime committed remains murky.

Donna Leon begins her 22nd trip into Brunetti's world in typical fashion. Vice-Questore Patta summons Brunetti to see if he can make discreet enquiries about a mask shop in one of the campi of the city. It seems that the proprietor of the shop has taken to displaying their wares on tables in the campo itself, despite not having the licence to do so. In what should surely qualify as an "only-in-Venice" moment (but is probably the kind of thing which happens elsewhere as well), there are implications for the son of the Mayor of the city, depending on the outcome of Brunetti's queries.

While Brunetti begins this line of investigation, his wife tells him that a deaf-mute man who had worked at their local dry-cleaner has died. Paola is concerned about what could have caused this death, and Brunetti is only too happy to make his own private enquiries about what seems to be a rather bland death by misadventure.
This is until the man - Davide Cavanella - turns out to have had no official existence. In Italy, as in much of the rest of Europe, national ID cards are issed to everyone, and Cavanella didn't have one of these. Neither did he leave any other trace going through life, even a school record at the one school in Venice designed to teach sign language, or a disability pension. Pathologist Ettore Rizzardi points out that without anything like this, an identification will need to be made by a relative, and Cavanella's mother is reluctant to be drawn on any of the particulars of her son's death, or his life.
By this point, of course, Brunetti's curiosity has got the better of him, and a careful private investigation ensues. As is relatively common in Leon's novels, the story of Cavanella's life is unearthed gradually, and involves numerous blind alleys and plenty of drinks in Venetian bars before the full sordid back-story is revealed.

The Golden Egg also represents a return to prominence of Brunetti's Sicilian colleague Griffoni, who had been sidelined in several recent investigations. Despite her lack of a Venetian background, her understanding of what Brunetti refers to as "a certain type of woman" proves pivotal in obtaining key pieces of information.

While there are fewer domestic scenes in The Golden Egg than are perhaps par for the course, the opening exchanges around the dining table are vintage Leon. Brunetti's family have devised a strange game where they tell a story from the end to the beginning, deliberately setting each other up with increasingly outlandish premises. Coming from a family with a strong line in word-play myself, this felt particularly authentic.

As ever with Donna Leon, if you know what you're getting yourself into, this is a terrific read. Brunetti never breaks a sweat, and neither will the plot have that result on the reader. In some ways, staging a novel like this in contemporary Venice comes closer than might sound possible to Miss Marple's St Mary Mead, in that Venice is a small town where most people know most people and just about everyone has secrets. Not quite the "rural cosy" that Agatha Christie pioneered, perhaps, but an "Adriatic cosy" is the next best thing.

Four stars.