Donna Leon: The Waters of Eternal Youth,  9781785150753 , Penguin Random House, William Heinemann, 13.99 L

Donna Leon has been my indulgence for a long time; I adore her best-selling Brunetti mysteries taking a mental trip to Venice every time I read them knowing I am in for a few hours of reading pleasure. I had the great fortune of meeting her personally one time during my years at Penguin; she is such a pleasant person with a twinkle in her eyes and many booksellers I spoke to who had her over for readings reported the same. I tried her non-Brunetti novels but found them not even close in quality to my beloved Brunetti novels.

As with every writer who has been pushing out novels for so many years, there have been better and weaker Brunetti books. “The Water of Eternal Youth”, her latest, is one of the better ones I am happy to report. It was a great joy to return to the book and spend another few entertaining hours reading about Brunetti’s 25^th case!  

When Brunetti is invited to one of his mother- in-laws famous dinners at their grand palazzo, he discovers the dinner has been arranged with a purpose in mind. Contessa Lando-Continui, an old friend of the family, wants Brunetti to re-open an old case, involving her grand-daughter Manuela who nearly drowned as a teenager after falling into one of the canals. She survived after being resuscitated but suffered severe brain damage remaining mentally retarded as a consequence of her injuries, staying trapped in the eternal youth of a 7 year old despite being in her Thirties now.  The Contessa still has serious doubts that everything was done to discover the truth and wants to find out what really happened to her only grandchild.  The police declared the case an accident years ago  believing she fell accidentally into the water. Feeling sympathy for the Contessa and being intrigued at the same time, Brunetti tricks his superior into allowing him to reopen the case and soon finds that not everything rhymes. When Brunetti meets the Contessa to find out about Manuela’s character before the accident, he learns she was an accomplished equestrian and also deathly afraid of water only able to walk in the middle of bridges making sure she never got even close to water’s edge – a nightmare for any Venetian, thus making a suicide or fall a very unlikely scenario. He also learns that the local drunk who rescued Manuela was never interviewed, being considered too demented and drunk to make a stable witness. I do not want to give away too much of the story but smooth and elegantly as ever,  Brunetti sets up his final trap for the one person who can really tell him the truth.