Donna Leon never disappoints. Her evocation of Venice as living community, rather than as a tourist hotspot, and of Commissario Brunetti and the family whom he loves, and who ground him is what gives this series its depth. But here too is an involving story. Here is an unidentified body in the canal, leading eventually to a slaughterhouse, where as the tale develops, crime after crime is uncovered, and few of the characters involved live happily ever after. ( )

I started listening to this on audio, but even after I got used to the Italian inflections (which may have died out after the first few chapters), listening was too slow for me. I didn't want to rev up the listening speed so I got the text from the library instead.

As usual, Brunetti is acutely aware of the ethical sewer of Venice, and works around it as he can. An unusual man is found in one of the canals, and is eventually traced to the industrial mainland. Identifying him, and why someone would want to stab him, is the process of the book.

Leon draws several almost-caricatures: a deformed man, an enormously fat man, a tall, very skinny man, a man who cannot stand the vision of meat processing. She continues to lean on the ethical controversies between vegetarians and the conventionally omnivorous - it will be interesting to see if she carries this forward in the series.. ( )

Beastly Things is Book #21 of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series written by Donna Leon.
It is somewhat painful to read about this case. It involves corruption (of course) and murder (of course) at a slaughter house.
Guido’s remarks about traffic and choked highways are somewhat naively funny, but most of us don’t have the option of travel by motorboat and car-free walkways.
A highly recommended title and series **** ( )

Beastly Things (Comm. Brunetti #21) by Donna Leon. It is always a nice thing to revisit Venice at any time of the year. The canals, the ancient mansions that line them, the young lovers and the people of the town mixing and mingling as does the languages they speak. It is a city built on both the water and romance.
But it is a city, and like every other city in the world, there is evil. When the body of a man is discovered in a canal, the work of Commissario Brunetti begins. This is the 21st outing for this urbane detective and. like those that came before, this case has long arms that reach out from the water city and into the real world beyond.
The body is something of a mystery. No identification, one shoe missing and the body itself suffering from a rare, non-life threatening disease. This latter thing gives the man a very distinct look, one that people are sure to remember. Like Brunetti does, although he can’t quite recall from whence that memory comes.
As in all of the Brunette novels there is a great array of various themes presented. The family life of the Commissario plays an important role in grounding the detective in real life, keeping him away that the world is not just full of crime and bad people but is in fact a very good and welcoming place. His office life, wether sparring with his boss or indulging Signorina Elettra in her flagrant misuse of her skills as a computer hacker. That is something that is always useful to the police in discovering the whys behind many of the people they face.
Beastly Things takes Brunetti away from his beloved Venice and on to the main land of Italy, to be surrounded by the many beastly things that abound there, not least of which are traffic and factories. It is to this last inconvenience that calls to Brunetti and his right hand man, Inspector Vianello. They have tracked the dead man to his home and his work as a veterinarian. It is not the man’s work with pets that may have caused his death, but the job he took a few months ago to certify the animals that were being brought to a industrial slaughterhouse as being good enough to process. And to certify the processed meat as being edible.
As in many of these novels, real world concerns, in this case animal rights and the humane processing of such, comes into play making the book have a greater world view that so many other plain detective novels fail to achieve. This is another fine addition to a long ling of very satisfying novels set in the all to real, and wet, world of Venice.
And the last chapter may have you grabbing for a hankie, it’s that good. ( )

It's a long time since I read a Commisario Brunetti novel, and though this would've been written 10 years after the last one I read, the characters remain familiar and I soon slipped back into the Venetian world of beauty and corruption. This was a comforting read. ( )