I love Commissario Brunetti series but I don't think this is the best installment.
I found it slow paced and more tragic than other books I read in this series.
The main theme is the environment and the damaged caused by the humans. The descriptions of Venice in summer is realistic and the water theme was interesting and it's a very serious topic.
The mystery was slow, it took quite a long time before you start to understand what the issue is and it wasn't hard to guess the culprit.
I liked it and found Guido and Venice descriptions as interesting as usual.
I think it can be recommended to fan of the series but it's not the right book to start reading Donna De Leon.
Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series is definitely not your typical police procedural. Brunetti is a quiet intellectual policeman who loves his city and his family. He is also practical enough to understand that policing in Venice also involves a lot of politics. He understand that everytime he has to deal with his superior, Patta. This time though, the story focuses on a dying woman in a hospice who asked to speak to the police. She proceeded to tell Brunetti and his colleague, Commissario Griffoni, about her husband being killed over "bad money". Unfortunately, she died before being able to explain her cryptic words. Feeling bound by his promise to look into the situation to the dying woman, Brunetti and Griffoni finds themself investigating what was a motorcycle accident of the woman's husband. If one is familiar with this series, one knows there's no big action or even big reveals like in a typical cop show. But, Brunetti is still one of my favourite literary characters. He knows and have to grudgingly accept that Italian justice system is far from perfect. He's doing his best in this situation, knowing that there are a lot of grey areas in life.

Brunetti walks the streets of Venice, rides through its canals, and eats in its bars and cafés in Donna Leon’s 29th Guido Brunetti mystery. Like Brunetti, I love food, and its a pleasure to sit down to dine with his family, Paola, Chiara and Raffi. Signorina Electra and the rest of his colleagues provide a wonderful supporting cast as Brunetti takes on the social, environmental, and climate problems of modern Venice.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Dear Guido
When will you ever stop seeing all sides of everything? Are you channelling Hamlet (or Henry James)?
"The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That I ever was born to set it right."
But, you will never take action to put things right will you? Happy to live with ambiguity and injustice as though this is embedded in as the unalterable DNA of your beloved Venice? I think you really let things slide on this one though- finding the murderer, but not caring to protect your children from pollution by investigating who is bribing those responsible for monitoring the water in the first place. Are they to be left to carry on? Is it ever thus in the Veneto? (plot problem #1) - The two "street" girls" plot left unresolved? How does that fit in? (plot problem #2). Why is Griffoni in the story at all? Unlike Elettra, her character doesn't even rise to "Fifth Business" ( problem #3) and #4, the incident of the photos of Lieutenant Scarpa? Where did that story line go? However, there is still the wonderful pace and character of Venetian life, the flowers, and the marvelous Signorina Elettra - two stars just for her.

Just before dying, a woman tells Brunetti and Comisario Griffoni that her late husband came across some bad money, and that's why "they" killed him. They promise to investigate and that leads to uncovering some grave things about water and how the contamination is supposed to be contained.

This is the 29th installment in the Guido Brunetti series and I'm glad to see Donna Leon is giving more space to Comissario Griffoni because she is a very interesting character. I missed having more of Paola and Signorina Elettra in this book, but maybe the next one is going to be all about them? That would be amazing :)

If you're used to reading this series, I think this book will be just what you want to read.. If you're not familiar with Donna Leon's work, please beware that things advance very slowly, and that sometimes the author uses a few pages to describe things that are not that interesting to the story (such as what jacket Guido is wearing, or all the steps to fixing Brunetti's lunch), but to me this is not a bad thing at all. Actually, it's something that I love about these stories, because it helps me to really get into the Venetian setting of the book, and to understand the character a little bit more, because all of these things are important to him. These books are not meant to be thrillers, but interesting cases in an iconic city, solved by very smart but quite normal people. I will absolutely continue to read this series!

Four stars!
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Solid & more of the same.

I can't believe I'm caught up with Brunetti. What's next?