Death at La Fenice
- 288
- Pages
- about 5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Death at La Fenice” is an assured start to Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti series, and Venice itself is its greatest asset. In this first novel Leon shows the city as the people who live there know it, in a dark and quietly moving register. Some readers find the prose plain and the plot too obviously built. Anyone who likes to follow a series detective from the very first case has a long road ahead.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Death at La Fenice (1992), the first novel by American academic and crime-writer Donna Leon, is the first of the internationally best-selling Commissario Brunetti mystery series, set in Venice, Italy. The novel won the Japanese Suntory prize, and its sequel is Death in a Strange Country (1993).
Reading order · Commissario Brunetti novels
Full order & progress →- Death at La FeniceThis book
7.67.6 / 10 - Death in a Strange Country
–Not ranked yet - The Anonymous Venetian
–Not ranked yet - A Venetian Reckoning
–Not ranked yet - Acqua Alta
–Not ranked yet - The Death of Faith
–Not ranked yet - A Noble RadianceA Noble Radiance–Not ranked yet
- Fatal Remedies
–Not ranked yet - Friends in High Places
–Not ranked yet - A Sea of Troubles
–Not ranked yet - Wilful Behaviour
–Not ranked yet - Uniform Justice
–Not ranked yet - Doctored Evidence
–Not ranked yet - Blood from a Stone
–Not ranked yet - Through a Glass, Darkly
–Not ranked yet - Suffer the Little Children
–Not ranked yet - The Girl of His Dreams
–Not ranked yet - About Face
–Not ranked yet - A Question of Belief
–Not ranked yet - Drawing Conclusions
–Not ranked yet - Beastly Things
–Not ranked yet - The Golden Egg
–Not ranked yet - By its Cover
–Not ranked yet - Falling in Love
–Not ranked yet - The Waters of Eternal Youth
–Not ranked yet - Earthly Remains
–Not ranked yet - The Temptation of Forgiveness
–Not ranked yet - Unto Us a Son Is Given
–Not ranked yet - Trace Elements
–Not ranked yet - Transient Desires
–Not ranked yet - Give Unto Others
–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 53 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 27% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Crime & mystery average of 7.6. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 53 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is Death at La Fenice?
It has 288 pages — shorter than 86% of the ranked books in Crime & mystery.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Crime & mystery — and a score of 7.6, the closest to this book.
