A.N.Wilson on compulsory crime fiction

Donna Leon will soon turn 80, and her latest Commissario Brunetti novel, Give Unto Others (Hutchinson, £20; Tablet price £18), is no less mysteriously compulsive than its 30 predecessors. Mysterious, because for page after page so little actually happens. Against the beautifully evoked Venetian background, the commissario and his aristocratic academic wife continue to pursue their blameless lives of beautifully prepared risotto con radicchio rosso di Treviso and reading – she, ­nineteenth-century novels, he, translations of the classics: Cicero’s Against Verres in this one. Computer genius Signorina Elettra, utterly beautiful, enigmatic secretary of Brunetti’s pompous police chief, continues to be the one who ­actually solves the crimes. Brunetti’s chief strength as an investigator is that he knows everyone in Venice, high and low, so when a vet’s surgery is vandalised in Murano, it turns out to belong to the daughter of a childhood friend. Unlike the footslog required by Maigret or Sherlock Holmes, Brunetti can pursue the truth at the delicate touch of Signorina Elettra’s perfectly manicured fingers on her keyboard. The latest story involves a charity supposedly set up to help a hospital in Belize which is actually ­benefiting a corrupt Venetian. It’s well enough plotted, though I kept thinking – surely we are going to have a bit more crime, and fewer rides in the vaporetto, or interesting marital conversations about Contarini Fleming? Then I thought – who cares? We are all enjoying ­ourselves, and happy birthday, Donna! Thanks for giving such civilised ­pleasure for half a lifetime.