Good mysteries are so hard to find. They often fall into cliches, or they create dark characters that nobody can love. So it’s always a joy to pick up a book by Donna Leon. The people seem real, the stories seem plausible, the solutions are logical, but the mystery is just that…a real “whodunnit” that will keep you turning pages.

The most recent Leon book I read is Doctored Evidence: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery. An old lady in Venice is found dead in her apartment. The police suspect her Romanian housekeeper, who happens to be on the train heading back to Romania. They stop the train at the border and attempt to arrest her, but she flees on foot. In the chase she trips and falls directly into the path of an oncoming train. Their suspect is dead, but they have all the circumstantial evidence they need to quietly close the investigation. And then a few weeks later somebody with a different story walks into the police department to share new information….

It’s a fun, back to basics mystery. Set in Venice and filled with mouth watering descriptions of lunches, dinners and wines, it’s a book that any love of Italian culture will enjoy.