Donna Leon - Beastly Things

Outside, people clustered on the steps, animals held by arm or leash, as the men carried the coffin down the steps and slid it into the back of a waiting hearse. Signora Doni and Teo paused at the door of the car idling behind it while a tall man came and attached a leash to the collar of the Great Dane.

Teo kissed the dog’s head and got into the car. His mother followed him inside. Other people stepped into cars that Brunetti, in his hurry to get into the church, had not noticed parked there. The beagle emerged from the church and, at the bottom of the steps, came to stand directly in front of Artù: they confronted one another, tails erect and bodies tensed. But then, as if conscious of the situation in which they found themselves, neither barked; they contented themselves with giving one other a thorough sniffing and then sat down side by side in quiet amiability.

The back doors of the hearse closed: not a slam, but certainly not a quiet sound. The engine started, followed by the firing into life of the engines of the cars behind it. Slowly it pulled away from the kerb, followed by the cars of Dr Nava’s family and patients. Brunetti saw that the cars were almost all light-coloured: grey and white and red. Not a single one was black. Though Brunetti found that fact somehow comforting, it was the sight of the green parrot disappearing down the street on the shoulder of his owner, the man arm in arm with a woman, that lifted his heart and wiped it clean of any funereal gloom.

Donna Leon has lived in Venice for thirty years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; including Friends in High Places , which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Through a Glass, Darkly, Suffer the Little Children, The Girl of His Dreams and, most recently, Drawing Conclusions .