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Tuesday 2 July 2019

Earthly Remains ~ Donna Leon


Earthly Remains audiobook cover art

Earthly Remains was my first foray into Guido Brunett’s life; and, as I have no other books in the series to compare it with I enjoyed the environmental  focus and a take away thought of “Bees are the canary in the mine”.  The mystery surrounds an oil company’s illegal dumping of toxic waste.  For those that like a case-completely-solved  who-dunnit with all the loose ends tied up, this is not one of those: still, I found it to be a satisfying end to an interesting story.

I really appreciate it that the Brunetti family is a loving and functional one and will be trying another of Leon's books at some stage.

Extra:  One slant the author tossed into the book was having Brunetti ‘knowing’ that prayer is useless;  “Dear Jesus, keep my children from harm.”  He knew it was the worst form of superstition, he knew there was no sense to it and no chance that it could help” <snip> he knew that prayer was useless.   And then Leon added a few good digs at the Catholic Church so I went hunting to get a sense of why she would do that: and found this interview with Anna Mundow, which I think answers my wondering pretty succinctly.      (Refer to Donna Leon’s answer to question three:  
Q: The series is a sly commentary on environmental issues, politics, the Catholic Church. Is that very deliberate? ) 

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The number beside each book is my personal rating for the book, or audiobook, at the time of reading with the range being:

(1) = would not recommend,

(2) = some interesting aspects but not one of my recommended reads,

(3) = would recommend.

(4) = Really good, enjoyable, (or worthy) read, would definitely recommend

(5) = Excellent book, highly recommend