I found another treasure in Donna Leon’s canon of Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries literally right across the street from my house.
Installment #11 in my series on the region’s independent bookshops.
Twenty-nine was the number of independent DC-region bookshops I settled upon in my quest to explore them all this year. But after walking across the Silver Spring Metro Plaza hundreds of times it finally dawned on me that the small book/record shop literally across the street from my house—Mojomala: Books, Records & Cool Stuff—was not just a fly-by-night pop-up. Their inventory is as extensive, interesting, and intriguing as several of the other small stores in my list, and they’ve been around since December of 2023. So, now I have a nice round 30 bookshops to visit in 2026!
Michael Abate is the owner of Mojomala and the one you’ll generally find behind the counter. A family-run, independent book and record shop in downtown Silver Spring, Mojomala first opened as an online store in 2021. Two years later they moved into a brick-and-mortar shop at the current location in the Silver Spring Metro Plaza, steps from the metro station, the popular Silver Branch brewery, and—as I’ve said—the Brown’s old home place.
A Patch article from 2023 adds a bit of history to the shop’s story.
“After starting out as an online-only business two years ago, Mojomala moved into the Analog Market on Gist Avenue in Silver Spring in July 2022.
After more than a year housed at the Analog Market, Abate then decided to seek a new location for the shop closer to the downtown area. He had always planned to open a standalone shop, and working with the Analog Market was seen as the first step toward that goal.
‘We see Silver Spring as a cultural destination and would love folks to see us as a start- or end-point of their visit to the area,’ Abate said. ‘In terms of the look and feel of the space, I was inspired by some of the book stores and record shops we visited in Berlin and Paris. We see the store as a boutique that highlights some of our offerings while having the full inventory available online at Mojomala.com.'”
Mojomala is a friendly, inviting and curated space for collectors and casual consumers alike offering used, new and vintage items ranging from books, records, CDs, DVDs, magazines, comics, games, toys and apparel. I can attest that there are usually patrons checking through the sale items outside, or visiting inside the store looking for that forgotten treasure.
And about that funny name.
As Michael tells the story on the store’s website, Mojomala (pronounced “moe-joe-mah-lah“) is “a combination of my oldest daughter Madeleine Olivia (the ‘MO’), our youngest daughter Josie (the ‘JO’), my name (the ‘MA’) and my wife Laura’s name (the ‘LA.’). We wanted a name that could mean anything and everything.”
Sometimes—just like a detective—the simplest place to look is right under one’s nose. And that’s what I did on a recent visit. I found not only my 30th local independent bookshop but also a large collection of mysteries among the book offerings . . . which is how I came to read another Donna Leon Commissario Brunetti classic.
Fatal Remedies (1999) by Donna Leon is the eighth in what is now a 33-installment series about Commissario Guido Brunetti, the Venetian detective whose “clothing marked him as Italian,” the “cadence of his speech announced he was Venetian,” while his “eyes were all policeman.” This book begins, as they often do, with a late night call alerting Brunetti to trouble in the city. A sudden act of vandalism has brought police to the scene of the crime—a travel agency with a shattered window—and Brunetti soon learns that the culprit who may be arrested is a member of his family.
The agency is targeted, he discovers, because of possible involvement in sex tourism and pedophilia. The press learns soon enough of Brunetti’s delicate situation, other officers in the force who do not like the Commissario are circling, and his difficult superior has been pressuring him to solve a daring robbery with a link to a suspicious accidental death. Such things in Italy always suggest possible Mafia involvement. It is a thorny and winding path that Brunetti must follow to get to the ulitmate truth.
After having read the first, second, eleventh and thirty-third and most recent installments of the series, I knew what to expect. Once again we encounter the cast of characters who make up Brunetti’s life: his vain and pompous superior, Giuseppe Patta; his fellow policeman, Detective Sargent Lorenzo Vianello; the ever-resourceful secretary Elettra Zorzi, a woman of “endless and instinctive deceit” who always finds a way to get the information Brunetti needs as long as he isn’t too squeamish about her methods; the medical examiner Ettore Rizzardi; Paola Falier, Brunetti’s wife and a university lecturer in English Literature who is a delightful and loving foil for her husband; Paola’s father and Brunetti’s father-in-law, the wealthy and connected Orazio Falier; and his children Raffaele and Chiara. Signorina Elettra plays a major role in Fatal Remedies, as her computer skills and ability to use her sources to uncover critical information moves the investigation forward.
For fans of Leon’s work—and I count myself among them—the mystery usually plays second fiddle to the characters and relationships, and that was true in this case. The setting in Venice draws many of us in. The decent, erudite Venetian detectives are clearly crime solvers the reader can actually like. The stories are complex but not overly so. In Fatal Remedies we see Leon—and by extension Brunetti—grappling with moral issues where what is “just” is not always clear.
Fatal Remedies was an unexpected find discovered—as the truth in so many detective stories is—right under my nose.
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo by Leonardo Yip on Unsplash
MORE TO COME... 