海角大神

The month of March brings forth a profusion of murder mysteries. There are blind sleuths, married sleuths, bitterly divorced sleuths, and teenage sleuths. There are sleuths encountering crime and mayhem on every continent 鈥� and, in the case of a few science fiction titles, beyond Earth entirely.

And there are a number of familiar faces: authors and characters who鈥檝e been intriguing and delighting readers for many years. One of the most venerable of those series is written by Donna Leon and stars Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti. Readers have been enjoying Brunetti鈥檚 adventures solving crime in Venice, Italy, since 1992鈥檚 鈥淒eath at La Fenice.鈥� The genial Brunetti is a happily married husband, a caring father, and a patient listener with a virtually ultrasonic sensitivity for the unsaid. He鈥檚 the perfect hero for Leon鈥檚 minimal, almost lyrical writing style.

In the latest Brunetti book, The Temptation of Forgiveness, the hero鈥檚 peaceful domestic life is darkened by the fears of a friend of his wife. This friend is worried that her son is using drugs (as usual in Leon鈥檚 novels, the frank depiction of the darker aspects of life in modern Venice sits right alongside some of the most enchanting descriptions of the city in contemporary fiction). After the son鈥檚 father is found nearly dead at the foot of one of Venice鈥檚 many bridges, it becomes clear to Brunetti that everybody connected with the situation is passionately partisan and potentially dangerous. Brunetti doesn鈥檛 hesitate to embark on those rough seas again.

Throughout 鈥淭he Temptation of Forgiveness,鈥� Brunetti finds himself relying more than ever on the help of his fellow commissario, Claudia Griffoni, and something of that same kind of developing new professional relationship is also on hand in The Punishment She Deserves, the latest Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley novel from Elizabeth George, another well-known, reliable stalwart.

These meaty, psychologically probing stories (set in England even though George, like Leon, is American) began in 1988 with 鈥淎 Great Deliverance,鈥� and they have all starred the taciturn, cerebral, 鈥渆xtremely well-bred鈥� Lynley, who鈥檚 described in this latest novel as 鈥渇irst and foremost a gent.鈥�

In The Punishment She Deserves, the deacon of the sleepy town of Ludlow is found dead in police custody. Lynley becomes, for a significant portion of the narrative, a kind of peripheral player, yielding the investigative center stage to his colleague, Detective Sgt. Barbara Havers. This is a canny and risky move on George鈥檚 part, and she makes it work through building Havers into a character who鈥檚 fascinating in large part for how different she is from Lynley; their personal contrasts fuel the novel.

Personal contrasts abound in the season鈥檚 most outstanding mystery-related offering, even though that offering isn鈥檛 a novel. In her new biography, Laura Thompson, expert chronicler of the Mitford sisters, turns her attention to the famous 鈥淨ueen of Crime.鈥� Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life charts the long career and often tempestuous life of the woman who did as much as anybody to create the kind of book-a-year predictability that has shaped the careers of writers like Leon and George.

But the regularity of 鈥渁 Christie for Christmas鈥� masked long-standing conflicts Christie had with both of her husbands and with her daughter, and Thompson relates it all with novelistic energy.

鈥淎ll biography is storytelling,鈥� Thompson observes, and the story she tells so expertly in these pages ends in absolutely stratospheric success, culminating with Christie鈥檚 80th birthday in 1970.

鈥淔rom that point onwards her position was unassailable,鈥� Thompson tells us. 鈥淪he was the best-selling author in the world, after the Bible and Shakespeare; as she remains.鈥� All hail the queen.