Donna Leon’s “The Girl of His Dreams”—like most of the Commissario Brunetti detective mysteries—is an eye opener, asking questions that cannot always be answered.
Installment #24 in my series on the region’s independent bookshops.
Second Story Books, now in its 52nd year of operation, is a national treasure. The name comes from the store’s original location, a small second-story shop in northwest Washington. At one point Second Story had brick-and-mortar locations stretching from Alexandria to Baltimore, but with the coming of the internet owner Allan Stypeck consolidated into two locations: the Dupont Circle store at 20th and P Streets NW and the Rockville store at 12160 Parklawn Drive in Rockville, Maryland.
I’ve always frequented the Dupont store, first finding this gem when I began work in 1997 just across the circle at 18th and Mass Avenue. It is always a dream to explore, as the titles change frequently and one has options in a range of genres from inexpensive paperbacks to rare first editions.
As noted on the website, Second Story Books has “frequently been cited as one of the best bookstores in America by national and regional magazines, newspapers and numerous consumer polls.” Second Story Books was also listed by USA Today as one of the ten best used and rare bookstores in the country. Entering their next half century, the shop is also known as a co-sponsor of PBS’s nationally acclaimed quiz show It’s Academic.
I visited Second Story again early in October on the hunt for a good murder mystery as part of my Hallowe’en celebration. I found a small paperback from a writer I enjoy that fit in a travel bag. In reading another Donna Leon novel, I was killing two birds with one stone: adding to my list of mysteries for the month while checking off another installment in my quest to visit all thirty of the DC region’s independent bookstore. A perfect solution!
The Girl of His Dreams (2017) by Donna Leon is her seventeenth novel featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti. The story begins when a friend of Brunetti’s brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work in Africa, calls on the Commissario following a family funeral. It seems that he is concerned that an acquaintance is being taken advantage of by an American-style Protestant sect seeking only his money. Of course, there is always the chance that the priest may not appreciate the competition. Brunetti, although not religious himself, decides to attend a service with his wife Paola. They are joined by Inspector Vianello and his wife in this somewhat comedic (for Leon) undercover operation. The author’s commentary and the conversations she gives her characters places her firmly in the skeptic’s camp when it comes to the role of the church in Venetian life.
However, this investigation is put on hold with the discovery one cold and rainy morning of the body of a young girl found drowned in a canal. Brunetti and Inspector Vianello are pulled into life in a gypsy camp as they work to identify the girl’s parents and answer troubling questions about her brief life and how she came to end up in one of the city’s waterways. Leon has the reader considering the treatment of nomads and refugees as well as different applications of the law with various groups.
As is often the case with Leon’s books, truth and justice do not always align. Brunetti is pressured by his superior, the insufferable Vice-Questore Patta, to protect the middle and upper class citizens of the city, and he is once again helped in his navigation of Patta’s many moods by the Vice-Questore’s wily assistant, Senorina Elettra Zorzi. The name of the book comes from the role the young victim plays in Brunetti’s interior life. As the Commissario moves closer to the truth in both investigations he has to be satisfied in the end with some form of rough justice rather than depending upon the letter of the law. Paola, as always, helps him through these troubling episodes.
Leon is not everyone’s cup of tea. But I count myself among her fans who appreciate how her love of city, family, and humanity helps Brunetti—and eventually the reader—find a way in an unjust world. The Girl of His Dreams is both eye opening and thought provoking as we are faced with questions of who belongs and why.
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo of Venice by DJB.
