Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon

Atmospheric page turner plumbs the murky depths of Venetian daily life

Brunetti is investigating the murder of Signora Battestini, a miserly old woman who was disliked by everyone in Venice who knew her.

He has two things motivating him to solve the murder of this unpleasant old woman. One is to exonerate Flori, her domestic helper, who is now dead herself. He has been given evidence that shows she could not possibly have killed her employer.

The second is to stop another police officer from harassing and trying to discredit Signora Gismondi, a neighbour of the victim, who claims she can prove the domestic helper’s innocence.

It is the summer and his work is made all the more arduous because of the extreme heat in his beloved home city, but he works determinedly to find who was really responsible for Signora Battestini‘s death. He does not want the murder to remain unsolved and the dead Romanian domestic to be presumed guilty while the real killer is still at large.

Signora Battestini was found alone in her apartment with her head battered in, by her doctor when he paid his monthly visit.

Her maid, Flori, was on a train for Romania when police boarded it and searched the carriages. Asked for her documents, she panicked and made a run for it and was hit by a train when she crossed the tracks.

For Brunetti’s nemesis, Lieutenant Scarpa, who is investigating the death, it means that the case is closed. However, when the victim’s neighbour, Signora Gismondi, returns from a business trip to London and reads about the murder, she knows that Flori could not possibly have been the murderer.

Before going on her trip, she had rescued Flori after her cantankerous employer had locked her out of the apartment without any of her possessions. She had seen Signora Battestini at the window making gestures to Flori and when the unhappy maid had told her she just wanted to return to Romania, she had given her money and taken her to the station and put her on the train.

But when she tries to explain this to Lieutenant Scarpa, he does not believe her and tells her that Flori was guilty and the case is closed. Brunetti later gives her a more sympathetic hearing and he sets out to investigate for himself.

With Sergeant Vianello at his side, he looks into the old woman’s past and her financial affairs, and those of her dead husband and son. He finds out she was very wealthy, despite seeming to live in poverty and having earned a reputation for extreme meanness.

Sustained by lavish meals cooked by his wife, Paola, and evening drinks on their terrace while they discuss the meaning of life, he keeps digging until he finds out the truth.

He even personally searches the attic of the old lady’s apartment and methodically goes through the bizarre items she has hoarded, until he finds the real motive for the murder.

Doctored Evidence has a complex plot and the reader learns more about life in Venice along the way. This 13th book in the series is a good reminder of why I should keep reading Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti novels.