Ana María Ullán De La Fuente Books

Donna Leonas mastery of plot, her understanding of Venetian manners and mores, and above all her philosophical, unfailingly decent protagonist have made the Commissario Brunetti mysteries bestsellers around the world, including an ever-growing American audience. In "The Death of Faith," Brunetti comes to the aid of a young nursing sister who is leaving her convent following the unexpected death of five patients. At first Brunettias inquiries reveal nothing amiss, and he wonders whether the nun is simply creating a smoke screen to justify abandoning her vocation. But perhaps she has stumbled onto something very real and very sinisterasomething that puts her life in imminent danger.

For Commissario Guido Brunetti it began with an early morning phone call. A sudden act of vandalism had just been committed in the chill Venetian dawn, a rock thrown in anger through the window of a building. But soon Brunetti finds that the perpetrator is no petty criminal. For the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene of the crime is none other than Paola Brunetti, his wife.

The celebrated opera house, La Fenice, has seen its share of death. But nothing so horrific and violent as that of conductor, Maestro Helmut Wellauer, poisoned during a performance of La Traviata. Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, has to step behind the lights into the bitchy world of opera to investigate.

The Cold War is over and Ned has been demoted to the training academy. He asks his old mentor, George Smiley, to address his passing-out class. There are no laundered reminiscences; Smiley speaks the truth - perhaps the last the students will ever hear.