I'm finally getting back around to reading Donna Leon mysteries again (I'm about 7 volumes behind; she's a speedy writer!). As usual, I enjoy them but I can't read them back to back. Like most mystery series, the style and characterizations get repetitive and encourage at least a wait of several months between reading them.
This one's Social Agenda is around harassment and assault on women, which is detailed on a macro level and mirrored on a micro level as well. (As Leon does so well, being skilled in this realm, due to her past position as a professor of English literature.) The best Leon novels are the ones that give some new focus to an age-old problem, or that highlight a particularly Venetian problem. Otherwise, you read them for Guido and Signorina Elletra and Paola and all the other characters you've grown to enjoy, interacting with each other.
I'd say this one was not one of Leon's set of best novels, so I had fun watching Guido navigate the streets and canals, eat the good food, muse about Venice in general, and converse with his family. But there wasn't anything new here.
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