Transient Desires by Donna Leon
London: William Heinemann, 2021 ISBN 9781785152627
Hmmm. I was asked to read this by someone special in my life, who had read it because Donna Leon was an award-winning crime writer. My someone special asked me to read it because she had found it extremely disappointing, and wanted a second opinion. Our opinions concur.
This book, the latest of the Commissario Brunetti series of crime books, is one of the most slapdash, poorly plotted, sluggishly paced, and just plain confusing pieces of crime fiction I have read. Now, I haven't read any others of the series, and I think this is about the 30th of the batch, so maybe the earlier ones are better, and Leon has run out of ideas and puff. Not sure.
What I can state is that the characterization of Brunetti is extremely thin - we get no sense of a personality, but rather pieces of prose that are merely the author showing off. We get some sense of place: the book is set in Venice and even Leon can't entirely destroy the images of that place no matter how much she tries. The plot is woefully plain, and yet convoluted at the same time, and the writing is wooden.
Leon's writing, in this book, is full of unnecessary description, and yet lacks description in other places where it's needed, or would be enjoyable. It is full of non sequiturs - Brunetti ruminating on Tacitus, or the state of politics, in the middle of some scene where it doesn't make sense and where someone wouldn't be thinking those thoughts. Again, these lines seem to me to be the author trying to show off.
There were other things that annoyed me such Brunetti enjoying the "verbal sparring" with another protagonist, that had me re-tracing my steps to find the page or two of bland dialogue which constituted the "sparring". The pointless addition of Italian names for things, such as telefonino - it's jarring in a novel in English, doesn't add to the atmosphere and, in my opinion is lazy and childish.
The end of the book, which I won't give away, was also infuriating: in fact I asked my someone if the last ten pages had fallen out. The book is unfinished.
Reading Transient Desires was a waste of time, and unfortunately I've had to waste more of my time writing this review. Avoid.
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