One rainy morning Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to an emergency call reporting a body floating near some steps on the Grand Canal. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti's wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot - together he and Vianello lift a dead girl from the water. But, inconceivably, no one has reported a missing child, nor the theft of the gold jewellery that she carries. Brunetti is drawn into a search not only for the cause of her death but also for her identity, her family, and for the secrets that people will keep in order to protect their children - be they innocent or guilty. From the canals and palazzi of Venice to a Gypsy encampment on the mainland, Brunetti struggles with institutional prejudice and entrenched criminality to try to unravel the fate of the dead child.
Reviews
"Free of coincidence or obvious contrivance, The Girl of His Dreams is a showcase of nuanced characterization, acute observation and seamless plotting." The Washington Post - Dennis Drabelle
"Political reality prevails over justice, and a child's death goes unpunished despite the best efforts of Commissario Guido Brunetti in Leon's 17th Venetian mystery. When 11-year-old Ariana Rocich drowns in a canal and goes unidentified for days, she begins to haunt Brunetti's dreams. But Ariana is a Rom, or gypsy, found with stolen jewelry items secreted in and on her person, a discovery that makes Brunetti's investigation particularly sensitive in the face of new departmental directives regarding multicultural issues. The book opens with the funeral of Brunetti's mother before segueing into a subplot about a religious charlatan; so religion, as well as politics, becomes a topic around the family table for Brunetti, wife Paola, daughter Chiara, and son Raffi. A devoted family man, Brunetti is deeply principled if not overtly religious: his character and moral compass in the face of bureaucracy evoke as much interest as the crimes he sets out to solve. American-born Leon describes her longtime home of Venice lovingly, and the ethical grounding she gives this novel lifts it above the norm." Michele Leber - Library Journal
"Official justice being arbitrary in Donna Leon's gorgeously written but deeply melancholic Venetian police procedurals, the task of her detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti, isn't so much to solve a crime as to find a way of bearing the pain and horror of it. The Girl of His Dreams, the 17th book in this superlative series, restates Leon's theme with more intensity than usual." The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio
Author Biography
Donna Leon has lived in Venice for many years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; recently Friends in High Places, which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Blood From A Stone, Through A Glass, Darkly and Suffer the Little Children.
