Unto Us a Son is Given
By Donna Leon
Crime fiction
March 2019
Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 978-0802129116
Unto Us a Son is Given centers on the concern Brunetti's father-in-law, Count Falier, has for one of his oldest friends. Gonzalo Rodriguez de Tejada is a long-retired art world mover and shaker who no longer has that world's respect. But he does have a much younger man in his life and wants to adopt this man to be his son. That would mean inheriting his still considerable estate. The count and others are aghast at his plan. Brunetti is more in the live-and-let-live camp, and doesn't understand the fuss. But he will do a little looking into the young man's bona fides to ease his father-in-law's concerns.
But that's not how the world works. Before much is discovered, Gonzalo suddenly drops dead on the street while away from home. As his older friends gather for a memorial service to honor his friend, someone else dies. This time, it's murder.
As is usual when visiting Brunetti, the ruminations and philosophy are draws. This time, the good commissario ponders prejudices acknowledged and unconscious. How do any of them feel about each other if there is a label attached? And if the prejudicial beliefs were true, how deep would they go? How far would they extend? What about criminals in general? Are they born this way? Because this is Brunetti, he makes connections between these lines of thought and Calvinists and Greek tragedies he is now reading again for the first time in years.
Is there predestination? Do the gods dictate someone's journey? And how does revenge, or justice, tie into all of this?
Heady ideas, but ones that are tied to the deaths in this book, the 28th Brunetti novel. As Guido himself notes in this book, how can a writer make something horrific not, well, beautiful, but rather powerful? That's what Leon does here. Families, love and how we feel underlie this whodunit.
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